Sheik’s Daughter

Re “Marine, Sheik’s Daughter Defy Tradition for Love,� July 10:

Initially, the story of the young Marine and the sheik’s daughter--Meriam Al-Khalifa and Pfc. Jason Johnson--conjures up thoughts of Romeo and Juliet. But I’m wondering if Dred Scott might be the more apt analogy. This young woman made her own choice of a husband despite the risk of assault or even murder if caught escaping or if sent back. In the process, she gave up luxury and security for menial work and a precarious future. She and her gallant Marine husband deserve the sobriquet Freedom Fighter. Yet our government wants to send her back.

We did not dismiss apartheid as merely a custom of South Africa nor slavery as merely the tradition of the antebellum South. But far too often, we shrug off as merely tradition or culture the strictures that fall on women alone, as though women chose their oppression merely by being born in a particular place. Genital mutilation, forced marriage, forced prostitution, forced seclusion--regrettable but that’s the way they do things in some parts. Too bad.

Now we have a woman who chooses to choose--who wants to make for herself the most important decision of her young life. And she is willing to risk for her freedom and to work for it, too. America needs women like her. Let her stay.

MARGARET MORRIS

Ventura