Read Princess Sultana's Daughters for Free Online Page A

once been a lovely girl and had given birth to
seventeen beautiful daughters. Reema proudly said that her family
was known as far away as San’a, the capital of Yemen, for the
beauty of their women.
    The family was very poor, with only three
camels and twenty- two sheep. In addition, two of the six sons were
handicapped from difficult births. One son’s legs were twisted and
he could not walk; the other jerked in a strange motion and could
do no work. For these reasons, Reema’s father strove to sell his
sought-after daughters to the highest bidder. During the summer
months, the family would travel through high mountain passes, along
narrow, tortuous roads into the city, and a deal would be struck
for the daughter who had reached marriageable age according to
Islam.
    The year before, at age twelve, Reema had
reached puberty. She was her mother’s favorite child, and the girl
attended to her handicapped brothers. The family had pleaded with
her father to let her remain with them a few more years, but he
sadly confessed that he could not. There were two sons after Reema,
and the sister closest in age was only nine years old. Reema’s
younger sister was small and undernourished, and her father feared
the girl might not reach puberty for another three or four years.
Reema’s family could not exist without the marriage money.
    Reema was taken to San’a to be wed. While her
father scouted the city for a suitable bridegroom, Reema remained
in a small mud house with her sisters and brothers. On the third
day, her father returned to the hut with the agent of a rich man
from Saudi Arabia. Reema said her father had been very excited, for
the man represented a wealthy Saudi Arabian who would pay much gold
for a beautiful girl.
    The Saudi agent insisted upon seeing Reema
before he paid the money, a request generally met with the blade of
a Yemeni sword rather than humble compliance from a Muslim father.
The gold in the agent’s hands overcame the religious convictions of
the family. Reema said she was inspected in the same way her father
inspected the camels and sheep at market. Reema confessed she did
not protest the shame, for she had always known she would go to
another family, as the purchased property of another man. But she
squirmed and pushed when the man insisted upon viewing her
teeth.
    The agent pronounced Reema satisfactory and
paid a portion of the agreed sum. The family celebrated by killing
a fat sheep, while the agent had Reema’s documents prepared to fly
to Saudi Arabia. Reema’s father happily announced that the family
could now wait out the four years until Reema’s younger sister
reached the proper age, for the man from Saudi Arabia had paid a
large sum for Reema.
    Reema herself forgot her anxieties, even
becoming excited, after her father told her that she was the most
fortunate of girls. Reema was going to a life of leisure, she would
eat meat every day, have servants at her beck and call, and her
children would be educated and well fed. Reema asked her father if
the man might purchase her a doll, one like she had seen in a
discarded European magazine the children had discovered in the
trash bins of San’a.
    Her father promised that he would make
Reema’s request a high priority.
    When the man returned a week later, Reema
first learned the terrible truth, that the marriage would not be
honorable, that it was a marriage of mut’a, a temporary union. Her
father became angry, for his honor was at stake, his daughter
should not be treated in such a lowly manner. He pleaded with the
man from Arabia, saying that it would be difficult to find another
husband for his daughter, who would no longer be considered fresh
and clean. He might be forced to provide for Reema for many years
while seeking a man who would accept her as a second, less honored
wife.
    The man sweetened the deal with a bundle of
bills. He said that if Reema’s father refused, he would be forced
to insist upon the return of the money already