Abu Halima, fifty years of age, lives in one of the villages of the Bekaa in Lebanon. God has blessed him with seven beautiful daughters, all of whom have married; only two — the youngest of them — remain at home.
As for Umm Halima, who has passed forty, her errands to the city never cease. She is forever nervous and worn out. And what, one wonders, is the reason for this exhaustion and all these errands? Umm Halima has stopped bearing children, but she is not content with this state of affairs; she wants more children so as to bear "the boy" — the crown prince who will secure her future with Abu Halima and keep him from marrying a second wife, as the traditions and customs of country life prescribe.
So Umm Halima goes from one charlatan to the next, man and woman, paying out what she can from the little bundle of coins she persists in gathering — in secret from her husband — by selling labneh and laban. For the charlatans still enjoy in the villages a standing quite as great as the doctors' in the cities.
The days and months and years passed with Umm Halima in this state. Her color yellowed and she grew weak. Her youngest daughter reached the age of twelve, yet Umm Halima had obtained no result from the charlatans; so she withdrew into her house, her heart full of despair and hopelessness.
Then one day the people of the village began whispering that Abu Halima wished to marry a young woman who would bear him "the boy." And delegations of women and men came flocking to his house to talk the matter over with Umm Halima and to give her the liberty of choosing the bride for her husband.
After long discussion, Umm Halima consented, and after consultation with her married daughters their choice fell on a young woman named Zaynab, twenty years of age. Zaynab has a young brother who wished to marry, so the two families agreed on an exchange: Abu Halima would marry Zaynab, and Zaynab's young brother would marry Abu Halima's next-to-youngest daughter.
And so a single double wedding was held — the wedding of the father and of his daughter on one and the same night.
Umm Halima lived with her husband's bride in one house and one room. And from that time on, an atmosphere of anger and squabbling between the bride and Umm Halima has hung over Abu Halima's house.
After a year had passed, the bride bore Abu Halima — "a girl," and the awaited "boy" remains in the keeping of the unseen!...
So live most of the people of the village in Lebanon to this very day. Science and civilization have not managed to reach them.