Princess Bride? (Princess - Jean P. Sasson)

Member Name: helencb

Product:	Princess - Jean P. Sasson
Date:	21/06/05 (1264 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Educational, Straightforward writing style

Disadvantages: Harrowing at times

Princess, by Jean Sasson, is the biographical and often disturbing account of one woman's life in a relatively modern Saudi Arabia; which still believes its women are inferior to its menfolk.

The author, Jean Sasson, spent over ten years living and working in Riyadh and was incensed at the inequality of women within the country, and the power that men hold, and it was during this time that she met Princess Sultana. The Princess, the youngest in a family of eleven surviving children, including only one boy, begged Sasson to write her biography, based on her diaries even from childhood. Sasson was reluctant to write this biography at first; and it was not until after the Kuwait invasion in 1990 and Sasson's visit back to SA the following year, that she felt moved enough to bringing this story to the forefront of westerner's minds.

Saudi Arabia is a rich country, with ¼ of the world's known oil reserves. It is also a vast country in size, as big as Western Europe, although a large part is desert and uninhabited and the country is home to only 14 million people. There are stiff punishments including amputation of hands for anyone guilty of theft, and even the right to murder one's only family member for crimes against an individual. An eye for an eye would hold true under Saudi law. Amazingly women are rarely ever to testify for the reasons give that (1) They are emotional and will distory their testimony; (2) they cannot understand what they observe; (3) they will give testimony according to what men tell them as they are inferior, and (4) they are forgetful!

Sultana's grandfather was Abdul Aziz, whose descendents have ruled Saudi Arabia since the turn of the 20th century. Aziz amazingly married 300 women and produced fifty sons and eighty daughters; creating a powerful family who are at the centre of economic life in the Kingdom today.

Saudi women are essentially paired off into arranged marriages at very early ages, and it isn't uncommon for a 12 year old to be foreced to marry someone as much as five times her age, in order that she may produce sons for him. Despite Sultana's mother having 16 children (five died), her husband still took another wife in his quest for sons. Sultana's mother was married at the age of 12 and the first five girls were not even allowed to be educated, although the younger five were. This Muslim country has the Koran at the core of its religion although it would be wrong to blame this treatment of women on the religion itself as much as the customer and practices of the dark ages.

While some of the content of this book was not complete news to me, having read plenty of the same broad genre in the past, there are several accounts of brutality to women which seem completely unforgiveable, including cruelty imposed on a woman by a man in marriage, yet the particular girl's seems to condone the behaviour.

Sultana herself is quite fiesty compared to her sisters and mother, and was generally regarded as more of a trouble causer. She despised her only brother Ali, his behaviours and everything he stood for. It is remarkable even with the knowledge that sons are revered, that Ali was barely punished for some of his own despicable actions, particularly towards women.

It is appalling that in a relatively recent age (the book covers up to 1991), the depths of punishment that are doled out to women for at worse could be termed minor misdemeanours, if they are wrongs at all. One girl was imprisoned for the whole of the remainder of her life, simply for falling in love with a Westerner when in London.

It is also amazing how almost unbelievably wealthy this family is, with most men taking four wives and even having four palaces per family unit, completely identical, down to every detail, in the case of Sultana's family, so that they didn't have to travel with lots of luggage..... The family go to great lengths for personal comfort, including accounts of buying up every first class seat to travel, and refitting the entire maternity ward in an opulent standard, before the birth of a first child. Yet for a country whose people's have travelled so widely, it seems incomprehensible that this domination can still reign at home.

Despite Sultana's feistiness and the stories she details in the book, she herself still has to bow to pressure for an arranged marriage to a cousin, who will have been slected for the business arrangement behind the relationship. Thankfully her own marriage, while having its issues is not as dramatic of that of her next youngest sister for example, female gender mutilation and husbands taking several wives are par for the course.

Written in the first person, this book has a no nonsense style and can easily be completed in a couple of sessions; especially given the fact that it is difficult to put down once you start. As well as accomplishing its mission of letting the west know about this kind of practice, it does provide a fairly broad insight into the country itself, and a little of its neighbours.

The 2004 edition of this book can be bought via Amazon in paperback for £5.59, representing 20% off the cover price and contains 304 pages. Or try Amazon market place or ebay for a copy for around £2

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