May you two rejoice each other.
By marriage the wife becomes a member of her husband’s family. She assists her mother-in-law in the household duties. One of the reasons given for some of the very early marriages is that the young woman may be trained into a suitable wife for the son by his mother.
It is counted an affliction[[75]] if the new wife is not a mother in due time, and it is a joyous occasion when a male child is born. There are many parents who love their girl babies tenderly, but they are almost sure to be partial to boys, and the majority of parents are greatly disappointed if boys do not make up the larger part of the children.
One day I stumbled into a house where an anomalous condition of things existed for a Christian village. On coming away I learned that the man was a bigamist. He was reputed to have become rich through thieving, and his fine house was childless. What did he do but bring home another wife! The laws of his country were not against such a practise, but the law of his church, with the sentiment and practise of his fellow villagers, was sternly against it. He defied all, even though he was cut off from communion. He became an object of reproach and abhorrence to the pious and the superstitious of the whole village, who looked for terrible consequences. A long time afterwards, some mention of this man having occurred in conversation, I learned that he was without any children by his second wife also, and that his childlessness was considered by the villagers as a token of the wrath of God. Although rich, his lot was considered miserable by the neighbors. He was said to be worth about fifteen thousand dollars. He was accused of having made a business of stealing wedding finery from festive and sleepy bridal parties.
Disappointed lovers are not unknown among the peasantry. One young man of a prominent family fell in love with the daughter of the owner of a fig orchard next to his father’s orchard. For some reason, possibly the fact that they belonged to different tribes (though of the same village), the father of the girl was unwilling that these two young people should marry each other. He gave his daughter in marriage to another youth, a member of her own tribe. The disappointed young man has never been consoled, refuses to marry any other or even to enter into the social affairs of his own family. He lives, a recluse, at some distance from his village in one of the valleys. The villagers think that in time he may become a priest.
Boyhood and girlhood are shorter in Palestine than in America, but often merry. Stories illustrating the preference for boys among Oriental parents are plentiful, but no one who examines the society of the Orient will fail to find that it could not well be otherwise without very great changes. Boys increase the size, force, wealth and importance of the family. When they marry they bring home their wives and the children perpetuate the house of the father. Should the husband die, the wife and her boy children may be assisted by her husband’s relatives, the boys certainly. Should the mother of the boys marry again, the boys go from her to be brought up by her former husband’s family. Boys increase the house, girls decrease it. The earnings of the father and the sons go to provide a substantial family dwelling and to defend the house against adverse circumstances. Girls are sure to marry and, although they bring in a money payment to their fathers, yet in every other respect they are a disadvantage, as they go to strengthen another house, not the house where they were fed and reared. But there is not an iron-clad observance of an inhuman rule here as some seem to imagine. All customs strange to our Western ideas may surely be supposed to be grounded in very human causes and to be very natural after all. Many parents are very fond of their girls. Relations through the mother’s family and through sisters are often highly esteemed.
One evening two fatherless little girls belonging to a Moslem tribe in el-Bîreh were going home from Râm Allâh and were caught in a heavy hail and thunder-storm just behind our house. Knowing that they would be endangered we went out to bring them into the house until the storm should pass. We found them very frightened and cowering in the poor defense of a wall. They were soon quite happy after we had dried and fed them.
But, just as in any other country, there were anxious mother-hearts a mile away in el-Bîreh, and soon those mothers were out in the storm, having enlisted two men and two boys in their eager search for the little girls. Their terror was changed to keen pleasure when they found the children safely sheltered from harm.
As the demands of the tribal life become less imperative, following the improvement of social and general governmental conditions, the customs of the people approach more nearly those of other nations.
At the time of the baby’s birth one of the neighboring women goes with the good news to the father. For her welcome news she may receive a gift from him. The father also provides fruit and other dainties for those who come to congratulate him on the birth of a child. All this happens in case the child is a boy. Quieter times ensue on the birth of a little girl. The father and mother are known after the birth of the first son as the father of so and so and the mother of so and so. For instance, Abu Fâris and Umm Fâris are the new titles and practically the names of the father and mother of the boy Fâris. The child adds its father’s first name after its own. Simon Bar Jona (Simon, Son of Jona) was the style of name among the ancient Jews. In modern times the Arab omits the word son in common usage, thus making the name simply Simon Jona.