I always knew that there were many cultural differences between America and other places when it came to marriage. We even saw it in the China unit when we learned about arranged marriages and how the women oftentimes have no say in who they end up marrying. These types of differences were also seen many times in The Cairo House. Oftentimes, when there was talk about a young girl and who she might marry, there was talk about setting her up with one of her cousins. When Gina wanted to marry someone other than who she was “supposed to,” she was told to leave. She ended up doing just that, which shows that compared to in China, the women had at least some say, since they were given the option to either “follow the rules” or leave.
One thing I found interesting was when Gigi wanted a divorce from Yussef, she wasn’t allowed to actually divorce him, he had to go through all the work. That made it hard, and she even resorted to running away and leaving the country just so she wouldn’t have to be around the man she didn’t want to be married to anymore. Eventually, they did officially get divorced, but it would have gone so much smoother if Gigi had been allowed to initiate it herself.
Here in America, anyone can get divorced from their spouse whenever they want. I obviously have never been through a divorce and I was too young to understand the logistics of how it worked when my parents went through a divorce when I was 8, but I do know it is much easier, since the wife can file for divorce if she wants to, and doesn’t have to wait until her husband decides that he wants to divorce too. I also found the difference interesting, because I can recall my dad moving out of our house while my siblings and I stayed with our mom, but there was no running away or fleeing the country. My dad just moved across town and we would go stay with him every so often. I always think these cultural differences are interesting, but there are some aspects that I would have never thought of if we didn’t have to read The Cairo House.