Although you might be invited to join the tea-drinking crowd outside the bridegroom's family house, foreigners rarely witness the intricate ritual of Siwan weddings . Preceded by reciprocal visits of kinsfolk, and a ritual bath where the removal of an item of jewellery symbolizes her abandonment of maidenhood, the bride is "kidnapped" by her spouse's family, returned, and then delivered wrapped in a sheet. The wedding dress of embroidered shawls and skirts is as flamboyant as the outdoor garb of married women is drab. Nowadays, unmarried girls wear Egyptian fashions rather than Siwan costume, and the usual age of marriage has risen from fourteen to sixteen years (the national average) since the mid-1980s.

 

Traditionally, a Siwan widow commanded the same mahr (dowry) as a virgin since both were "daughters of the forty ancestors", but could only remarry after one year of bereavement. Cruelly, the Siwans regarded newly bereaved widows as "devourers of the soul" ( ghulah), and forced them to spend forty days in solitary confinement before they were "cleansed" - a taboo now happily lapsed.