IN THE MARBLE MANSION... Review on Princess - Jean Sasson

It does not matter whether you are a feminist or not, if there is a crime committed against humanity (last time I knew women still formed a part of the human race !) then as a human being you have to seal the fate of the oppressor and feel and try to assuage the pain of the oppressed. But while many victims can be rescued, reinstated or taken care of, for the woman of saudi arabia its a whole different ball-game whatsoever.

Jean p. Sasson wanted to write about the beautiful country that saudi arabia is-- with its warm hospitality, open loyalties and opulent lifestyles. She did not want to join the bandwagon of a multitude of writers who write about the sick/sorry plight of women under an islamic fundamentalist society. She wanted to show why she had taken saudi arabia as her home...a place which was caring, safe and secure.. just the way a home should be.

During her stay in saudi arabia she had befriended a royal princess who is henceforth in this review and in the book mentioned as ''Sultana''(to protect her, her children and everyone she loves). She was a direct descendant of king abdul aziz; the founder of the ruling Al Sa'ud dynasty.she had urged jean to tell her story...the story of a princess in saudi arabia.

When people think of a saudi princess what is the first picture that comes to the mind..''somewhere in a grand palace is a woman of exotic beauty who lives with a platinum spoon in her mouth and enjoys a life of luxury that we lesser and not-so-fortunate can only dream of.'' but alas! nothing could be farther away from the truth as sultana braves every danger and risks her very existence to let the world know exactly what she is and how she lives...her oppression comparable only to the plight of a slave.

It should be mentioned here that jean p. sasson and sultana have not tried to demean the faith of islam while documenting this tale for as sultana had rightly pointed out and sasson agreed.. even christianity gives males a superiority that leaves no room for the exaultation of the female. CASE in point the banning of and subsequent furore over''the da vinci code'' just because it pointed out that the christian faith has done away with the concept of the ''sacred feminine'' which definitely needs to be revived.

To all those fundamentalists/ dogmatics out there-- wake up and smell the salts-- human beings are not the be all and end of ''CREATION'' (ha ha!).. and thus we too shall pass (evolution lessons anyone?)>.

Sultana speaks in the first person. she speaks of her childhood as the tenth and obviously unwanted daughter of her father's first wife (as you guessed it right he had four wives) she grew up knowing and living with the fact that a woman was of no worth to her father, brother, husband, son or any other man whatsoever.

She was living to become a good wife (namely, a woman for the sexual gratification of her husband, an obedient servantile mate at his beck and call who was at his mercy incase he should want to give her a ''Talaq'') and a good mother (a woman who reproduced throughout her reproductive age, roughly 13 to 45 and bear as many sons as humanely possible!) <for those of you who are still unaware and plan to take it out on your wives when she is unable to give birth to a son.. please a woman has no hand in determining the sex of the foetus.

Behind the veils the woman are stashed away for the enjoyment of men... no one is spared.. young children form sex toys and foreign maids are labelled as whores who would obviously bed anyone. a woman does not and should not have a say in this matter.. it was the arena only to be traversed by men. a man may flounder as many times and with whomever he wants but a woman of class and aspiring to marry well is as virtuous as the amount of blood stains on her nuptial sheets and her servility out of it. age is not a matter...for it is not a rarity for a girl barely in puberty to be married off to an ancient old man.

While men go about doing exactly what they want the woman are denied basic human rights like voting, having a public say, testifying in court of law, choose when and who to marry (more so if at all), travelling, education and work in a profession not approved by the mutawas(it also includes engineering and any form of medicine apart from OBG and paediatrics).

Not quite the world we had imagined for a princess right?

The story of sultana is not an aberration but rather a revelation of practices very much present in the day to day life of millions of women around the world (not only in saudi arabia).

In a world dominated by and run for men it is not a wonder then that we hear of sultana's anguish as she tells us about the horrors of child abuse, sex slavery, ostracisation, forced prostitution, crimes of huddad and qasis, islamic mutawas and finally the utter antipathy she feels for every mn she has known in her life.

A must read for all those who want to know and for those who never thought that such things were possible.

FURTHER READING:

1. any other book by jean sasson especially daughters of arabia and desert royal

1. reading lolita in tehran by azar nafisi (non-fiction)

   
   




2. the da vinci code- dan brown

   
   




3. secrets of teh code - dan burnstein (non-fiction)

   
   




4. jesus lived in india (non- fiction)

   
   




5. the sexuality of jesus- (non-fiction) .. in greatest probability you won't get this book

   
   




6. satanic verses- salman rushdie

   
   




7. ''ghare baire''- bengali book by rabindranath tagore. try to get a translation its worth it

   
   




8. memoirs of a geisha

   
   




9. any book on the purdah system prevalent in rajasthan

   
   




10. any book on hindu religion and philosophy (Principle Upanishads - Dr sarvapalli radhakrishnan)

    
    




11. tibetan book of living and death.

    
    

FINALLY IT'S NOT ENOUGH TO READ.... DO SOMETHING... ANYTHING.