Fearing that she would create a scene during the marriage ceremony and spoil the family name, Sara was drugged on the orders of her own father. To say that Sultana’s older sister Sara was forcibly married off to a sixty-two year old man who ‘most resembled a weasel'(right), as his third wife, would be an understatement. I calculated that if my father looked at me enough times he would recognize my special traits and come to love his daughter, even as he loved Ali.
Finally, I despaired of attaining his love and clamoured after any attention, even if it were in the form of punishment for misdeeds. As a consequence, I spent my childhood trying to win his affection.
….In sad contrast, to my father I represented the last of many disappointments. She bore one daughter after another – until there were ten in all…. My mother feared each pregnancy, praying for a son, dreading a daughter. In a family of ten daughters and one son, fear ruled our home: fear that cruel death would claim the one living male child, fear that no other sons would follow, fear that God had cursed our home with daughters. Sultana writes how she craved her father’s attention in any way possible. In the land where the male child is so prized and the female scorned upon, the expectation from Fadeela was for a son that would ensure the succession of her husband’s legacy.
Sultana’s mother, Fadeela, was his first wife, and therefore his head wife. Each of the wives have children with him, and he rotates between his wives, giving equal time to each. Sultana’s father has four wives, and they all have their separate palaces. ‘Princess’ is the tale of the growing up years of Princess Sultana, the youngest of ten sisters, with this pseudonym so to protect her real identity. Late King Faisal of Saudi Arabia who was assasinated in 1975 by his nephew
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