Chapters 1 through 6 Summary

As the story opens, the author, Fatima Mernissi, explains that she was born in the Moroccan city of Fez in 1940. Fatima says that there are many frontiers in her life, of which some are tangible and others intangible. The first of these to play an important role in her life is the doorway separating her family's living quarters from the courtyard shared by the extended family. Fatima's mother tends to sleep later than Fatima and she says that her very first experience with a frontier is in learning that she is not allowed to go out into the courtyard until her mother was awake. Fatima is pleased with this frontier because the rules regarding it are "crystal clear." She learns to sit quietly for the time until her mother wakes, usually about two hours, by viewing everything around her as if...