Throughout the story many issues are mentioned such as arranged marriages and premature or early marriages Princess Sultana watched many female members of her family forced into marriages to men much older than them in two whole chapters Sultana talks about her sister Sara’s marriage to a sixty-two years old business man when she was only sixteen! Which I found nauseating! She also quotes the prophet Muhammad “whoever hath a daughter, and doth not bury her alive or scold her, or prefer his male children to her, May God bring him into paradise” which I think is very smart of her to mention as she explains how many men “have chosen to follow the customs of the Dark Ages rather than to follow Muhammad’s words and example.” She doesn’t blame Islam and doesn’t want other people to misunderstand her religion. Although births of male children are documented in family or tribal records, none is maintained anywhere for females.” I also liked when she goes on and says: “I have often asked myself: does this mean that we women of the dessert do not exist, if our coming and our passing go unrecorded? If no one knows of my existence, does that mean I don’t exist?” Sultana is aware that women are treated unfairly in her society.
Sultana says: “neither our births nor our death is made official in any public record. In her book, Jean Sasson talks about how women in Saudi Arabia were always objectified, given no identity. Well I chose to write about this book because it is a true story about the oppression of women, even though the story is written about a Saudi woman in Saudi culture but I think that all Arab women can relate to this story and I learnt from this course that a feminist story is a story written by a woman about a woman for women, which is the case in the book “princess”. She was one of only four or five Royal princesses who accompanied their husbands to some social functions held at the various foreign Embassies in Jeddah, and later in Riyadh.” Although she did not come out in a public way, she led her life in a manner that was unusual for the times. Princess Sultana was one of the young female Royals pushing against the age-old restrictions against women. “I met a Saudi princess who would change my life in a most profound manner. She left for Saudi Arabia to work at a Royal hospital and lived there for ten years, and during that time she became close friends with “sultana” (which is not her true name, she changed it for her own safety) who asked her to write her story, and that’s when Sasson wrote her book “Princess: A true story of life behind the veil in Saudi Arabia.” She is the author of many worldwide bestsellers and now lives in the USA. Jean Sasson is one of my favorite writers.
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