By Nisreen Zalmout, project coordinator at the Conflict Resolution Center, Nablus:
\nA girl of 17 was asked for in marriage by a young man 18 months older than her, but she did not agree and refused firmly because she loved the idea of completing her education. Her family, and particularly her mother, pressed her to agree, and two months later the engagement took place. When the marriage contract was concluded she did not feel the joy every girl her age feels, as though the matter did not concern her at all. During the engagement it became clear to her that there was no understanding or common ground between them, and when she told her mother she wanted to break off the engagement, her mother told her that people's talk spares no one.<\/p>\n
The young woman, whose name is Taghreed, a pseudonym and not her real name, says: a week after the marriage was completed my husband beat me over a trivial disagreement, even though I had never been beaten in my life by my family, and suddenly a person was beating me, so a great shock came over me. I complained to my mother and she told me that all men beat their wives, so this became something normal in my life. My husband had a restaurant in Jordan and I would help him prepare the food, and yet he was so mean in giving me any money to buy what I wanted that when I was pregnant with my first daughter he would give me only the doctor's fee and the fare, to the point where I felt I was no more than that.<\/p>\n
She continues: a problem arose that forced us to leave Jordan and return to Palestine, and of course there the greater disaster was that none of my family was there, so I always felt like a stranger and felt distress and exhaustion. He had not told his family he was staying with them despite the cramped house, so his mother began to trouble me constantly so that I would press my husband to leave the house and go somewhere new. At the same time I was afraid because my husband is stubborn and quick-tempered and was angry with me because I pressed him at his mother's insistence, and afterwards the problems increased, so we left the family home and rented a new house.<\/p>\n
After we left the house my relationship with my mother-in-law began to improve, at the expense of my relationship with my husband, who held me responsible for leaving his family's home. He began to leave the house in the morning and come back late at night, so that the house was like a hotel to him, and afterwards I discovered he had a relationship with a married woman. In that period his mother fell ill, and his relationship with his mother was strong, but the strange thing was his lack of concern about her illness. His mother died, so my loneliness and bewilderment grew, and I decided to escape from all my problems by looking for a job, even though I had not completed my education. God granted me a job as a supervisor at one of the schools, and I stayed working for them for 6 years and proved to the head teacher that I was creative in my work, and I was very happy. But my happiness did not last long, because my husband insisted on taking my salary to buy a flat, and I refused, and with his insistence he decided to take a second wife.<\/p>\n
It then occurred to me that I had nothing in this world but the weapon of learning, so I completed my education. I went to the Ministry of Education and asked about the procedures to receive my first textbook, and looked for a school that would take me, and I was accepted at Al-Farouq School. There the problem was the fees, which my husband refused to pay, so I called my brother in Jordan, who helped by providing the first instalment, and I began my studies, keeping a balance between learning and my commitments to my children at home. I refused to submit to my husband's demands to return to Jordan and stayed with my children, so my husband rented a new house for his wife, but his marriage did not last more than a month.<\/p>\n
When the time came to pay the second instalment at the school I asked my husband to pay it and he agreed after much difficulty. One day, during the final examinations at the school, that night I found the English subject difficult because I did not understand it, and at the same time my husband asked me to make pickles. I defied my husband despite my tears and made the pickles and finished studying the subject, and I sat the exam and passed. Some time later I discovered that my husband had given the pickles to a woman friend of his, which made me lose my senses.<\/p>\n
But praise be to God I passed the tawjihi, the secondary certificate, and applied to study at Al-Quds Open University despite my husband mocking me because my university average was low. Even so I insisted, and my life went on despite the suffering and exhaustion<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u0628\u0642\u0644\u0645 \u0646\u0633\u0631\u064a\u0646 \u0632\u0644\u0645\u0648\u0637 – \u0645\u0646\u0633\u0642\u0629 \u0645\u0634\u0631\u0648\u0639 \u0641\u064a \u0645\u0631\u0643\u0632 \u062d\u0644 \u0627\u0644\u0646\u0632\u0627\u0639\u0627\u062a \u0646\u0627\u0628\u0644\u0633:- \u0641\u062a\u0627\u0647 \u062a\u0628\u0644\u063a \u0645\u0646 \u0627\u0644\u0639\u0645\u0631 17\u0639\u0627\u0645\u0627 \u062a\u0642\u062f\u0645 \u0644\u0647\u0627 \u0634\u0627\u0628 \u064a\u0643\u0628\u0631\u0647\u0627 \u0645\u0646 \u0627\u0644\u0639\u0645\u0631 18\u0633\u0646\u0629,\u0648\u0644\u0643\u0646\u0647\u0627 \u0644\u0645 \u062a\u0648\u0627\u0641\u0642 \u0648\u0631\u0641\u0636\u062a \u0628\u0634\u062f\u0629 \u0644\u062d\u0628\u0647\u0627 \u0641\u064a \u0625\u0643\u0645\u0627\u0644 \u062f\u0631\u0627\u0633\u062a\u0647\u0627 \u0648\u0644\u0643\u0646 \u0627\u0644\u0645\u062d\u064a\u0637 \u0627\u0644\u0623\u0633\u0631\u064a \u0648\u062e\u0627\u0635\u0629 \u0627\u0644\u0623\u0645 \u0636\u063a\u0637 \u0639\u0644\u064a\u0647\u0627 \u0644\u0645\u0648\u0627\u0641\u0642\u062a\u0647\u0627 \u0648\u0628\u0639\u062f \u0634\u0647\u0631\u064a\u0646 \u062a\u0645\u062a \u0627\u0644\u062e\u0637\u0648\u0628\u0629,\u0648\u0639\u0646\u062f\u0645\u0627 \u0639\u0642\u062f\u062a \u0627\u0644\u0642\u0631\u0627\u0646 \u0644\u0645 \u062a\u0634\u0639\u0631 \u0628\u0644\u0630\u0629 \u0627\u0644\u0641\u0631\u062d\u0629 \u0627\u0644\u062a\u064a \u062a\u0634\u0639\u0631 \u0628\u0647\u0627 \u0643\u0644 \u0641\u062a\u0627\u0647 \u0641\u064a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2596,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pcdcr.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pcdcr.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pcdcr.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pcdcr.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pcdcr.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pcdcr.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pcdcr.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pcdcr.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pcdcr.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pcdcr.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}