If You Get Me Ice Cream I’ll Marry You

I was supposed to marry my first cousin.

At the age of ten there were whispers around the family that when I came of age, I would marry my first cousin. This would be my father’s sister’s son. I didn’t really know what to think, after all Hakim was not only my cousin, but someone I played soccer with in the garden, ping-pong on the kitchen table, and he would willingly go with me to buy ice cream as I typically needed a male to accompany me when I left the home. Anyone willing to help me get ice cream is commendable in my ten-year-old mind, so Hakim from my perspective was a respectable guy. He truly was a nice kid, he was around 13 or 14 at the time of these whispers among my family.

This is typical behavior in Middle Eastern culture to marry first cousins--to keep familial and economic ties close. Many of my family members were married to their first cousins; it was common and respectable. Growing up in Iraq, I assimilated to the idea of marrying my cousin, as this was customary.

It was expected I would continue my education in Iraq, until 8th grade and quit to marry. It is hard to fathom, but I did not object to any of this. It was as if I was on a moving train and it left, my destiny sealed. At this point it was fact; I would marry my cousin, bear children, and continue living in Iraq. To think this was my destiny at one point in my life is haunting. Not that marrying, children, and living in Iraq were awful, it was the fact my destiny was already determined and not by me.

I was in an environment where cousins marrying were common, bearing children early, and quitting school respectable options, so I went along with my no-choice destiny. Luckily for me, none of this came to fruition as the F.B.I. and my dedicated family worked diligently to arrange my return which rescued me from Iraq.

Today I reflect on how lucky I am to be in the U.S. and the freedom and choice I have as a woman to marry who I want. Choice and freedom feel so good now that I know what that tastes like. I have to note that arranged marriages typically last forever compared to marriages with choice, but I would never trade choice or freedom now that I have it.

Thank you to everyone who has served in any capacity to help those in Iraq to hopefully allow women and young girls the choice to determine their own destiny. I salute you from the bottom of my heart.

*The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the Air Force or any agency of the U.S. government.
**The name of Alea Nadeem’s cousin whom she was expected to marry has been changed.
***This is the third entry of the RallyPoint series “To See A World In A Grain Of Sand” https://rly.pt/ToSeeAWorld authored by Alea Nadeem