DISCUSSION LITERATURE

Mother’s Inheritance Reflection

 

If one does not know any other way, that is all one knows. Until one tires of a situation, nothing changes.  

What if experience, finances, and contacts are present?  Example in point:

Princess Haya bint Hussein was married for five years to Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and ruler of the Emirate of Dubai.  She is also known as HRH Princess Haya of Jordan, the daughter of King Hussein of Jordan and his third wife Queen Alia, and the half-sister of King Abdullah II.  This personal history and present support give her power to change her life.  She fled her husband because of his treatment of his daughters (Sheikha Shamsa and Sheikha Latifa  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51756984)  – not their shared children.  When she protested, she became a target.

Mother’s Inheritance has no such backing. Her possibility thinking is limited.  There are hints, though. Her mother’s gifts.  The protagonist has limited finances with which to defend herself. Powerful contacts are nonexistent. What the character does have is the inheritance of thought.  She may not have tangibles, but she has potential because her mother taught her worth.

This poem is not completely idiocentric to this culture.  Child brides have been bartered politically almost universally.  Girls have been and still are trafficked. Education has been denied not on merit, but because of gender.  Healthcare has been restricted. It was not until the United States had a female Surgeon General did research in female heart issues receive focus.   Limitations in business still exist.  It has been said that opportunities really started for women as a result of serving in WWII industries.  Women  are paid 79 cents on the dollar of their male colleagues.   https://genderequalityfunds.org/gender-equality-workplace?gclid=CjwKCAjwq832BRA5EiwACvCWsdwqPNvtmAq5RFkcwsWzrBe3rdMGCOxSZDExVEGGKZ584jrjzAF8cRoCWJIQAvD_BwE    

Before that there was women’s suffrage.  For generations, women’s inheritances were controlled by their fathers, and by then their husbands. 

For the sharing of  richness, two things are often required:

 1. The party in control is willing to share. 

 2. The party desiring change is persistent.  

Consider:  Leverage.  These can be multiple and diverse.

BTW  UAE is one of the most liberal countries in the Gulf, with other cultures and beliefs generally tolerated. Politically it remains authoritarian.  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-14703998   22 Middle Eastern profiles are included on this site.