Page 18 - Personal Column (Charles Belgrave)_Neat

of the villages. The father is a decent-looking man who works for the oil
company, earning about £20 a month. His ex-wife is so heavily en­
veloped in dark shawls that it is not possible to sec what she is like. She
is accompanied by her mother, a shapeless bundle of black garments, who H
stumbles into the court and subsides on to the floor. The policeman tells
her to stand up; we tell him to let her stay where she is. The subject of the
case, a little girl who looks to me not more than nine years old, clings to
her mother’s robes, but peeps at us curiously through a slit in the shawl
which covers her head. She is a pretty child, with a pale complexion and
enormous dark eyes.
The father tells us that his wife, whom he divorced some years ago, has
married again and his daughter has now reached the age of puberty.
Though children in the East mature early I find it difficult to believe this,
but as the mother does not deny it the statement is accepted without
medical evidence. The father says that he wants to take charge of the girl.
When he says this the mother begins to sob and the grandmother rocks The Adviserate in 1926
to and fro and beats her head with her hand; the child, now thoroughly
' frightened, adds her lamentations to the din. We lean back in our chairs
until quiet has been restored.
We make some enquiries about where the girl is to live if she goes
back to her father. He too has married again, but he does not suggest that The Adviserate garden in 1956
his daughter should live with his new wife—perhaps she does not fancy
the idea of having a small stepdaughter in the house. He proposes that r • .71
the child should live with his mother. The ex-wife then becomes shrilly ,v.
v '-'it
offensive about her former mother-in-law, who she refers to as an ‘old
she-devil*. I tell her to behave properly or she will be turned out of the
court and the case will be dealt with without her. She repeats that she m
would rather die than let her daughter be looked after by that ‘old she- w
2-
devil’—her mother-in-law. The girl’s father looks awkward and em­ - m $ ■
barrassed. Though he may be a good oil worker he is no advocate; all he f! A $
says is, ‘I want my daughter/
The ex-wife then asserts that the girl’s father has never paid her any­
thing towards the maintenance of the child and she enumerates all the
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things which she has bought for her daughter and, tells us how much it & S'.
has cost her to feed the child. The husband admits that he gave her
- ‘
nothing. The case drags on. We discuss among ourselves whether we .tl.
w:
should send the case to the religious court, but hearing this the mother .Vrij
makes a suggestion. If the child is allowed to live with her maternal grand­ ■3- ^
mother she will waive her claim for past maintenance. The father agrees
on the condition that when the girl is sought in marriage he and his ex- •Jj. !\
32
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