ABSTRACT
Hind, 1 the second of four daughters of a farmer who had migrated to Alexandria, Egypt, in search of work, was widely considered within her poor, urban neighborhood to be a young, voluptuous beauty. Despite the twelve-year-old Hind’s protestations, her father gave her in marriage to another rural migrant, who Hind felt treated her like “his donkey.” When Hind became pregnant after a brief but socially defined and stigmatizing period of infertility, her husband beat her with a boot in her pregnant belly. This, Hind believes, caused her future postpartum complications. When the baby was delivered by the daya, or midwife, he had pus in his eyes and could not open them. Hind herself experienced severe pelvic pain for three months. When she recovered, her son developed boils over his entire body and, shortly after his first birthday, succumbed to a fatal respiratory infection. Abused and miserable, Hind successfully pleaded with her father to help her obtain a divorce. Unfortunately, as a divorcee, Hind was a burden on her poor family even though she served as a surrogate mother and wetnurse to her two infant sisters.
