Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood

The author begins Dreams of Trespass by introducing the hudud, or “sacred frontiers” (3), of Islamic Morocco. Throughout the autobiography, young Fatima attempts to understand these borders, both physical and symbolic, and her place within them—a task made more difficult by the political upheaval of 1940s Morocco, and the resulting shifts to the rules and traditions of Fatima’s world.

Perhaps the most important hudud in Fatima’s life is the harem itself—and as harems are designed to restrict women’s freedoms, Fatima understands early in life that the sacred frontiers function by “organizing [her] powerlessness” (3). As a result, she must understand these boundaries in order to overcome them and reclaim her freedom. Fatima’s cousin Chama tells an invented story that nonetheless arrives at an important truth: she says that in the ancient past, men decided to measure power by who could control the most women, and “building walls and shoving [women] in” (43)—i.e., creating harems—was the best way to do so. However, in the modern world, “men’s power is no longer measured by the number of women they can imprison” (45)—yet Moroccan men have not caught on to this truth, and still keep women behind harem borders. Chama’s symbolic story shows young Fatima that as a woman, she is unable to move freely and decide where and how she will live. However, other countries have adjusted their borders, no longer imprisoning women, and this fact offers hope that Morocco’s frontiers might shift as well.

While Chama’s story describes physical borders, Fatima’s grandmother Yasmina teaches Fatima that the most powerful hudud—and the most essential to understand and overcome—exists in the mind. Yasmina explains that even though her farm harem doesn’t have walls, women are still forbidden to leave, and men aren’t permitted to enter without permission—thus the border separating men and women, and keeping women in the powerless position, still exists. “Once you knew what was forbidden,” Yasmina says, “you carried the harem within” (61). Furthermore, these “invisible rules,” hidden frontiers created by customs, laws, and traditions, exist “wherever there are human beings” (62). Yasmina warns Fatima that most of these invisible frontiers are “against women” (62), limiting their rights and freedoms. Again, the shifting politics of 20th-century Morocco come into play, as Yasmina hopes that modern women will “find a way to change the rules” (63), to renegotiate the borders. Fatima—as a part of a generation Grandmother hopes will receive an education, learn foreign languages, and have the ability to travel—has inherited the responsibility to help “change the rules,” to question boundaries and refuse to accept them as they have always been.

While the adult women in Fatima’s life do not have the opportunity to break through hudud, they find ways to symbolically rise above the frontiers—most notably through storytelling. While Aunt Habiba can never leave the harem, her stories take her and those who listen “travel[ing[ past Sind and Hind (India), leaving Muslim territories behind” and journeying “so far that no gods were to be found” (19). Both Habiba and Chama tells stories about women who break through frontiers, such as Princess Budur, who impersonates a man and rules a kingdom. Throughout the book, Fatima comes to understand that stories well told can “make frontiers vanish” (114), and she dreams of the day she can create, through her own tales, “a new Arab world, in which men and women” can exist “with no frontiers between them” (110). Thus, the “life’s occupation” (3) Fatima describes at the book’s opening is not just to identify and understand the frontiers, but to change and even dissolve them. Though these sacred boundaries might represent women’s “powerlessness” (3), Fatima’s journey to understand her world ultimately leaves her with greater power and a stronger voice.

Fatima Mernissi, the narrator and author of Dreams of Trespass, grows up in 1940s Morocco, a time when centuries of tradition that oppress women are beginning to change. Moroccan nationalists are both fighting back against French and Spanish rule, and also hoping to create “a new Morocco, with equality for all” (35). The adult women in Fatima’s world, who have led limited lives, unable to travel or even learn to read, pin their hopes on Fatima’s generation to fight for women’s rights and live with happiness and fulfillment.

Perhaps the greatest symbol of women’s restriction in 1940s Morocco is the harem, an institution that keeps women from moving freely and making even the most basic choices on their own, and many female characters voice their belief that harems should be abolished. Cousin Chama recognizes that harems exist to ensure men maintain power over women, and since the rest of the world no longer gauges “men’s power […] by the number of women they can imprison” (45), Morocco needs to catch up. Fatima’s mother wonders what “sacred purpose” harem traditions, such as eating all meals as a group and “sticking together in this big, absurd house” serve—and her answer is “none of course” (78). Fatima sees that harem life “chok[es]” (78) women like Fatima’s mother, and as a child she comes to understand that in order for women to live free and fulfilling lives, the laws and traditions that keep women in harems must be overturned.

Women like Chama and Grandmother Yasmina emphasize to Fatima that changing laws, giving women a voice in the government that decides their fate, will be the key to Moroccan women’s liberation. Chama retells the stories of feminists from other Arab countries who fought to change laws, such as raising the marriage age and giving women the right to vote. Grandmother Yasmina feels certain that the laws will change in Morocco as well, allowing Fatima to receive an education and abolishing polygamy, a tradition that oppresses women by forcing them to share a husband. While Yasmina is correct about Fatima’s education—Fatima’s mother successfully fights for her daughter to attend school—Yasmina’s hope for an end to polygamy is never realized. In a footnote, Mernissi explains that even at the end of the 20thcentury, Muslim countries keep polygamy legal “because they want to show women that their needs are not important” (37). The author emphasizes that until women “have their say in the law” (37), true equality will not be realized: by the time Fatima reaches adulthood and writes her memoir, Moroccan women are still fighting for an equal voice.

While all of Morocco’s women’s hopes for a freer future may not be realized, Fatima does enjoy opportunities the former generation does not, particularly the right to an education, to become literate and learn how she can change her world. Women like her mother urge Fatima to use these opportunities well, to continue to fight to free women and to live fully, both for herself and for the women who are still imprisoned. Mother encourages Fatima “to create a planet without walls and without frontiers, where the gatekeepers have off every day of the year” (201).

Despite the promise of women’s liberation, Dreams of Trespass ends with a reminder that Moroccan women still have a long struggle ahead of them. Mina, a woman who was enslaved as a child and knows much about power and the lack of it, tells Fatima that as long as women and men are divided, one side will hold all the power and the other none. Mina suggests that this separation—which occurs when women are confined to harems and can’t communicate with men in the outside world, and when men receive an education that women do not—causes an “enormous gap in understanding” (242) that leads to inequality. Thus, a new, more equal Morocco requires not only rights for all, but connection between all people as well. By the end of the book, that reality has not been realized. Ending with an illustration of the imprisonment Moroccan women must still overcome, the final sentence states: “If you can’t get out, you are on the powerless side” (242).