The Good Wife Guide

July 5, 2007 at 10:04 am · Filed under Pop Culture

http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k234/jollyrob81/ATT4952161.jpg
(click to read)

Good to know that most Jordanians still have the 1955 mentality.






  • http://za3moot.wordpress.com/ yaseen

    nice, i’ll print it and keep it till i get married ;D

    umm just a quick question, this comment won’t be here in like 5 years or so? right? ;0

  • http://andfaraway.net Roba

    Mish bas 7atdal mawjoodeh, I’ll personally pass it out kaman :P la2 bamza7 bamza7.

  • Nart

    Great instructions.. it seems that back in the 50′s women were appreciating men- their status and efforts to maintain a family..!!

  • http://reflectionsallmine.net salam

    I posted this last year, it was read 700 something times..by far my most read post..check out the comments..
    http://www.reflectionsallmine.net/archive/2006/8/82035.html

  • http://faithnMystery.blogspot.com Maher

    weeeen ayyaam zamaan bass!!!! ya bayeee!! kaan el zalameh lama yowsal 3ala el beit ma tesma3e sooot el zeet 3al naaar!

    hala2 el zalameh bowsal 3ala el beet, belage marto lammeh sa7batha 3endha.. o bel3abo winning eleven!

    i honestly wish yerja3o ayyam zaman :S

  • http://madnice.wordpress.com Sarah Mohamedi

    Whilst perversely funny, in a way, it’s quite possibly fake:

    http://www.snopes.com/language/document/goodwife.asp

    It’s been doing the rounds for years now, and I personally think it’s fake. Not because stuff like this didn’t happen in the 50s, in the ‘West’, but because it is way, way over the top.

  • http://www.madeinjordan.wordpress.com Pheras Hilal

    Again, don’t tempt me to get started.

    I’m taking a summer course called “Tarbiye Wataneih” (Civil Studies), which by the way, has little in common with the true essence of civil responsibility!

    Anyway, gladly, the instructor is a really sweet woman, so she insisted on listening to the students discuss whether they would vote for a woman to be part of the parliament. You don’t want to hear what happened. Half of the blokes blurted out the most typical response in the world: “Woman normally use their emotions to judge, while men use their mind to judge and lead.” I laughed it off by saying, “Yes, it’s obvious how much Jordanian males use their brains in this country.” But anyway, that’s not the point. The point is, that most of the girls also blurted out that they won’t EVER vote for a woman, which also surprised me. Some girl said that a woman’s role is to remain in her house, and to only raise children and please her husband (i.e. becoming a baby-making machine). So Roba, the women in Jordan have defined their roles in society, and obviously, do not have the will to even engage in society and becoming a part of society. Of course, this is mostly blamed on the mentality that we were bred on.

    Roba, if you want to see change in Jordan, Jordanians need to break away from their parents way of thinking, and become mentally, and ideologically independent. Because it’s the same cycle going on and on, unless somebody breaks that cycle.

  • http://american-in-jordan.blogspot.com/ Dave

    Hey, you have no right to question your husband. A good wife always knows her place.

  • http://american-in-jordan.blogspot.com/ Dave

    And even if it is a fake, you could easily rename it “The Jordanian Woman’s Good Wife Guide – 2007″.

  • http://blog.sweetestmemories.com Qwaider قويدر

    Interesting! While I’m also skeptic about it’s authenticity. I find it very offensive to men of these days!
    If someone prefers to marry a mindless droid. Then they should go ahead… make one! And marry it.
    Couple hundred years from now. This comment will probably be offensive to any sentient droids

  • طفيلي( ahmad)

    Pheras Hilal ‘If you want to see change in Jordan, Jordanians need to break away from their parents way of thinking, and become mentally, and ideologically independent’
    Totally I agree with you. How can we do that? We need to encourage youths to read books from different sources not only religious books.
    For women role in house, I heard once from scholar in Islam, women are not supposed to do any work in her husband house. Her husband has to provide her housekeeper to look after kids and house. But she can be part of that if she wants. Of course I will tell my future wife about that…..
    Anyway, In Jordan these days women and men get married because they see their parent do it .they have no plan for future
    There was a survey asking spouses in Jordan if passions stay after marriage think 75 %of men and women answered, they become as brother and sister after 3 years from marriage. They have no time to celebrate their wedding anniversary .Some of them forget it .

  • http://www.thescatterload.com Hamzeh N.

    I wonder what the “Good Wife Guide” looks like today, or what most girls, especially in Jordan, think a “good wife” means. Same for husbands. What items above get deleted? What gets added? What gets changed?

  • http://mindsonbytes.blogspot.com Isam

    another reason to live in the 50s … :)

    but really … take his shoes off ??? that is so over the top …

    but really most of it … according to what i read about that era … could be true …

  • http://www.madeinjordan.wordpress.com Pheras Hilal

    Ahmad, thank you. You are right about Islam and defining the roles of women. Islam explicitly said that a wife’s duties towards her household, and by extension, her husband, are to:
    -Bear the husband’s children, and raise them.
    -Protect the household itself, which translates that she shouldn’t bring any foreign men in the absence of her husband.
    -Protect the household’s income, which translates not to go on lavish shopping sprees without consulting her husband.

    So, our traditional mentality has absolutely nothing to do with Islam, but in fact, it’s just an inheritance of 50 year old traditions. And honestly, women in Jordan, normally want to take the easy way out, I can’t blame them for that, but I think it’s wrong.

    For instance, at work, the driver who is around 26, is engaged to a 17 year old girl, and the wedding day is scheduled after her Tawjihi tests. They are constantly talking to each other and flirting over the phone like lovebirds. But the whole marriage is just a recipe for disaster. The girl is using this marriage crap, as a way to not study university, and also she’s living her naive, rosy love story. While, little did she know, that after 9 months, she will have her first baby, at the age of 18. And at least 5 other babies will pop out in a time span of at least 7 years. So, at the age of 25, she will have 6 children, with nothing to do in life but to wash dishes and change diapers. Obviously, she didn’t take all that into consideration, and she thinks that her life will be exactly like a prolonged honey moon. But that is wrong. So, she will be dealing with all of these responsibilities, while her peers are out, going to university, studying, building their own future, and their own careers, and making their own decisions in life, and strive to become independent. While, she, because of her laziness, is now stuck in the house, with half a dozen of children, and she is just watching her dreams fall apart.

    How sane is that exactly?! My mother till now regrets the day that she married too soon, and regrets that she couldn’t pursue her education, because she was raised in this typical Fallahi household. I am very proud of my “Fallah” heritage, but still, a lot of things are wrong with that sort of mentality. Khalas, it’s time for us, the new generation to at least raise our children in such a way, where they will call the shots to their lives, and not follow our parents’ and grandparents’ footsteps.

    So Ahmad, I’m really sorry. But I believe in the theory that says that change takes at least one, or two generations for it to fulfill itself. A generation here, is defined as a period of 13 years. Sorry to break it to you, but I don’t believe change is destined to happen overnight. Yes, things are gradually changing in Jordan, but it’s only in terms of exterior. So yes, now people are more willing to go out, and girls wear naval rings, and guys are wear piercings, but that’s superficial change. The change I want to see, is a change in ideology and mentality, because that kind of change is far more effective. I’d like to see people emerging as leaders, and not as followers, or sheep. And I’d like to see young people, who are trying to take their future in their hands, and not rely on their parents to buy the next car, or to rely on them for the next down payment for property.

    But oh well…

  • Leon Schiffman, St. John’s University

    that includes your family

  • HeiGou

    طفيلي( ahmad):”For women role in house, I heard once from scholar in Islam, women are not supposed to do any work in her husband house. Her husband has to provide her housekeeper to look after kids and house. But she can be part of that if she wants. Of course I will tell my future wife about that…..”

    Except where does the housekeeper come from? He can’t be a man because that would be forbidden. She would have to be a woman. In which case, where does she come from? Who is looking after her children and her husband? This is just exploitation and was hardly practical before Indonesian maids became so cheap. Besides, the aHadith show clearly that a woman is expected to work in the home – my favourite being the one that says if a woman is cooking on a hot stove and her husband demands sex, she is to go to him at once even if the food burns.