This independence, I think, is what drives the women of my generation away from marriage.
Add to that the many divorces we keep hearing about, and the “I’m satisfied with what I’ve got” types of marriages that are filled with constant nagging:
He smokes cigars, Dalal’s husband. Dalal has told him over and over that she can’t stand the smell of cigars. At first, in the first flush of their relationship, he used to put out his cigar whenever she got bothered by it, assuring her that he would do anything to please her, even fly to the moon. Oh yes, a parade for putting out a cigar. Then the days passed and the honeymoon was over, and they were no longer stars to their families and friends. Their glow faded and they became another normal couple, naturally. And that’s when he stopped putting out his cigar for her. That’s the main reason she’s so annoyed by him now. Early in the morning he fills the air around her with cigar smoke that suffocates her. And then the whole idea of it suffocates her even more. And her life becomes a cycle wrapped round and round like the body of a cigar. The cigar has become the purpose for Saeed’s (her husband’s name is Saeed) existence. His life is meaningless without the thing he cherishes most—his cigar.
Then he would go on about the thighs of the Cuban women who rolled his cigar especially for him, the Cuban women whose beauty Lebanese women only dream of. Oh my, those Cubans.
Dalal would make fun of him: “Beautiful, yeah, but they rolled that cigar for you? Just for you? Some Cuban girl rolled that cigar especially for you? Believe me, one look at you and she’d quit her job. God, if she met you, she’d light herself on fire.”
Dalal defends her feminism in the face of Saeed’s attacks. She is repulsed when he struts around the house like a peacock. But where should he strut if not in his own house?
Their shared life has become a living hell.
I am certain that the cigar is not the main reason for their marital troubles, even though I myself go crazy every time I get stuck in a bar or café with someone smoking a cigar. I don’t understand this invasion of personal space. It’s the same with the sound of smacking gum. How can people invade other people’s personal space like that? So carelessly and without hesitation, unaware that they are committing assault.
Nevertheless, I am sure that the problem between Dalal and Saeed is not the cigar. The problem is their coexistence. Such a life is no longer comfortable or possible, and the thought of marriage is no longer seductive. They both started hating each other and their lives turned into constant daily revenge on each other. As if, now that she was his, he no longer needed to be mindful of her. And she felt as if she had lost her connection to her true self, and she could no longer tolerate his getting in the way.
I’m aware that there are more serious divorces where the couples tear each other apart, but Saeed and Dalal’s divorce was more of a retreat than a divorce. They wanted their old lives back and no longer wished to live as they were living.
And that’s when old age usually came up in our conversations.
Every day at work, Dalal would recount to me an episode in her married life. And at that point, we usually started talking about old age. Her parents would say that Saeed would make a good partner for her when they grow old, so she should put up with him. She told me: “What if I tolerate him and he dies of a heart attack ten years from now? Or what if I kill him before he reaches old age? How can I sacrifice the best years of my life, only to grow old and still have to face him, like a bad job? And what if he gets sick, coughing constantly, and ordering me around; me, who’d be old too, and would have to take care of him. And what if he divorces me then? What if he gets run over by a car a year from now? What if I die young and never reach old age? Should I spend the best years of my life waiting for either death or old age? I can’t stand him! Ugh.”
After four years of marriage, they got divorced.
His family dragged her reputation through the mud. Lazy, doesn’t cook, doesn’t keep house, doesn’t want to get pregnant because it would ruin her figure, neglectful, dirty, reckless, goes out too much, works too little, spends too much of both her money and his, etc.
And her family dragged his reputation through the mud too. Grumpy, arrogant, a mama’s boy, cheap, lazy, smokes cigars from dawn to dusk, neurotic, never likes to go anywhere, rarely ever showers, insults her, etc.
I’m aware that there are more dignified and less messy divorces. And I know of mature and conscientious divorces, more like separations than anything. And there are divorces of couples with children that are accompanied by whispered references to the ex’s positive traits. The woman would say: “He’s my son’s father.” And the man would say: “She’s my son’s mother.” And “as we entered this marriage gracefully, we will exit it gracefully.” And as Abu Nuwas once said, “Don’t blame me, for placing blame
