Erased From History: The Empty Place of Women On Our Family Tree
After posting my grandfather’s picture I got several requests from family members to write more about our family history. The poor ancestors didn’t know who’d be writing their history. I’m not good at ancestor worship.
My father. who died at the age of 100, was a great raconteur. I find myself at an age where I should write down the oral history that was passed down to me. It is very strange to think that after you a story will die, never mind the degree of its veracity, stories are worth preserving. Since I’m cleaning the apartment where my Iranian parents lived for thirty years in exile, I find, or revisit family memorabilia — whatever we have that was not confiscated when the revolutionaries raided our home in Tehran in the summer of 1979.
I am looking at the copy of an entire family tree, several hundred years old, not a single woman mentioned — as if the prophet’s offspring were only ever men begotten by men. There is something liberating about being erased from history. If you don’t exist, you can’t be blamed for it. So, next time some demented moron yells Allah Akbar and blows himself and others up, don’t blame me. I was erased from the history of Islam, of Iran, indeed of the world, before I was even born.
Below, you would’ve seen a picture or two of my grandmothers but you don’t see them. So try to imagine their non-presence there. I only found one picture of a woman, Ashraf Saltaneh, my grandfather’s first wife, who had enough wealth of her own to be photographed, I suppose. Money has always been the easiest way to cross gender boundaries. I was born much later than the death of all of them so I never knew them. I’ve never seen either grandmother’s picture. While the pictures from grandfathers on both sides were displayed proudly there was not a single trace of a grandmother. While there were plenty of anecdotes about the grandfathers no one ever said a word about the fore-mothers.
All this ancestor worship and not a word about the poor old grandmas. Neither parent ever stopped singing praises of their illustrious fathers. Iranians have tremendous respect for the dead. I must be one of a few who writes like this about her ancestors and surely it doesn’t count if it’s in the language of the colonialist. I owe this more to Mrs. Stewart of Community School, Tehran, than any compatriot. (Btw, I’m glad she’s not around to hear the #GOP debates! She would have had a heart attack.)
Perhaps being erased from history helps me be the way I am. What loyalty do I owe to whom? And I always preferred English, except for when it comes to poetry. In Persian, I’m forced to be polite and all forms of politesse are suffocating when you are screaming like Pussy Riot inside. English is not just a language for me, it is a refuge.
My mom had never known her own mom because the former had died of tuberculosis shortly after she gave birth to my aunt — when my mom was just three or four years old. That is all I know about her. Later, I found out that my maternal grandmother had been my grandfather’s brother’s wife first and had married my grandfather out of some tradition that makes the poor widows marry the brothers of their deceased husbands. This served to keep the woman in the family, taking care of her children because they belong to the husband’s family, not her, by law. I hesitatingly understand the logic that it was kinder than banishing or separating her from her children. But still, they didn’t have to do it here in France now, did they? Widows here, even in medieval times had many rights and often ran their deceased husbands’ businesses. My old dissertation adviser has written an entire book on widows in 16th century Paris. The archives here are filled with records of women, working women, noble women, nuns, and traders. Plus, in Catholic Europe women could always take refuge in a nunnery or become nuns. At least, upper-class women could. That choice, we never had. Nope, we just had to jump from one dude’s bed to another. And be grateful for it too! I hardly knew her name even, my grandmother from my mother’s side.
My maternal grandfather, a high court judge from Tabriz, was another opium addict like my paternal grandfather who was the custodian of the Shrine of Imam Reza, a big title then as it is now. I’ve heard much praise about my mom’s dad being enlightened, like our family’s own Montesquieu — but his wife? Nada. No one seems to know much about her. Only that she had eight or nine children from two brothers and then died.
My paternal grandmother whose name was Kokab Ghaffari, was very devout, half the grandfather’s age, buried herself in the reading of the Koran and had a reputation for being a healer. She was my paternal grandfather’s second wife. I don’t know why or how she died. My father always spoke about his father but rarely about his mother other than the fact that the Koran that she knew well was her only solace. Interesting how that book has helped victims from my grandmother to Malcolm X, it seems to be prison reading par excellence.
