Reprint. Originally published: 1969.

Includes index.

The book begins with newlywed Fernea's journey with her husband to the village where they will be living. It speaks of her misgivings about being such an outsider, entering such an unfamiliar environment, and shows her resentment at beginning her marriage living in a two-room mud hut with no plumbing. The story is one of a U.S. woman learning how to live in an environment which is entirely alien to her. [...] Her description of village life is very much filtered through her own perceptions as a 1950's-era American woman. [...] It is a story not only of rural Iraqi culture, but also of Fernea's personal development as she learns how to fit in. As the story unfolds, Fernea covers her observations of the day-to-day life of the women in the tribe, the process of slowly making friends with them as she learns their language, and the local Shiite religious observances that she had the opportunity to observe. She talks about the veiling of women, the practice of polygamy in that village, the hard manual labor that is part of everyone's life, the religious customs, the food that people eat, the structure of society, and the encroachment of modern "civilized" life on the traditional rural culture. -- From http://www.shira.net/ (Nov. 15, 2016).