Page 169 - UAE Truncal States
P. 169

Chapter Four

                  the majlis male visitors are received by the male members of the
                  family and no females who have reached the age of puberty may enter
                  the majlis while there are guests. If the guest is a distant relative, a
                  neighbour or a very close friend of the head of the family, he  can
                  speak to the women of the household through the door or by raising
                  his voice while sitting inside the majlis.
                    Only the father, a brother, a son and possibly other very close male
                  relatives and also a foster-brother42 may proceed beyond the majlis to
                  sit and speak face to face with the women of the house.43 The
                  courtyard, the kitchen area, the separate room or rooms for the older
                  generation of the family and the room where the women of the
                  household gather and the head of the family sleeps at night are thus
                  part of the harm 1. In densely built up areas none of these rooms nor
                  the courtyard walls have windows at eye-level to the outside; in
                  towns there is often a curtain wall opposite the rear door to guard
                  against people seeing into the yard when the door is opened. In this
                  way, rather than being confined to one room or a small area, the
                  women go about their daily routine within the family compound even
                  while strangers are visiting.
                    There are many different patterns of separation between the majlis
                  and the harlm area, depending on the type of accommodation which
                  the family can afford, on the social status of the family, on the number
                  of non-related visitors which the family can expect, and on the
                  importance which the head of the family attaches to strictness of
                  segregation and the necessity to guard against the possibility of a
                  stranger catching a glimpse of the women’s faces.
                    The institution itself, the harlm, is largely a symbol of the position
                  of women within society: they are not members of the community as
                  much as they belong to the private lives of the man on whom they
                  depend most at a particular stage in their lives (father, husband or
                  brother). Within the domestic scene, as anywhere else in the world,
                  however, women often dominate. In particular an older woman who
                  is known to be a devout Muslim may become very much the person
                  who lays down the rules for the entire household with regard to strict
                  observance of praying and fasting, concerning marriages of members
                  of the household and the social contacts of the family, which in some
                  cases amounts also to the measure of political involvement of the
                  family in the affairs of the community. Women are protected from the
                  male world by the institution of the harlm; they are secure within its
                  boundaries and this security they carry with them in the form of the

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