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Gillian Blackiston
Non-Western Literature
Professor Salih
October 21, 2013
How Following Tradition Can Help Us
In many cultures around the world, tradition is a part of them. Tradition is passed down
through the family to the younger generations. People living in the same region or country
usually have the same traditions because they have lived around there for a long time. Usually,
knowing the traditions of a town can help someone know more about the people living there.
Following the traditions of our people can help us understand ourselves and our world.
To begin with, many cultures have traditions to follow when it comes to marriage. The
culture of Iran is no different. The tradition of marriage in Iran is that the families have arranged
marriages for their children. However, the state of Iran has made laws that make it hard
sometimes to keep to this certain tradition. In the novel Reading Lolita in Tehran, the girls
discuss how the laws surrounding the rights of marriage have changed over the years. With the
laws changing, tradition is also changing with them. For example, the text says, Nowadays,
girls marry either because their families force them, or to get green cards, or to secure financial
stability, or for sex---they marry for all kinds of reasons, but rarely for love (Nafisi 258). In this
law, it does mention the traditional arranged marriage, but it also mentions the other reasons to
marry. With this new law, they are focusing on the other reasons for marriage that are not a part
of their original tradition. In the past, Iran was used to just families forcing kids to marry. Now,
since their world is changing in the modern world, their tradition is slowly changing so that the

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families can give the children a better chance and better life. Now people living in Iran
understand that it might not be enough anymore.
The other reasons for marriage take away the importance of doing it the traditional way.
Now with new reasons to marry, families are not relying on their traditions so much, and could
inherit the new ways as their tradition. The girls in the novel talk about how at one time the law
was that men could marry a girl that was only nine years old, or that they could have several
wives at once. These laws relates to their tradition because they were the practice of their
ancestors. Nowadays, in Iran, more young ladies want to run away with their sweethearts of their
choosing to start a better life for themselves. Most of the girls living in Iran are forced into
arranged marriages by the parents. Arranged marriages are a part of the parents heritage, and
they want to instill that into the children. If the young people in Iran follow their culture of the
past, they learn what it was like to live as their ancestors did. However, with the modern culture,
some of the younger generations are changing their thoughts on some of the old customs. They
learn the lessons that the generations before them may not have learned. This is due in part of the
changing in the culture and world with new technologies. These laws and practices are different
for me living in the United States today. In most cases, in the US a man can only have one wife
at a time, and we do not have many cultures that participate in traditional arranged marriages.
The traditions in the United States are more open and not as strict when it comes to marriage. I
grew up with the idea that the girl can choose who she wants to marry more freely without a lot
of interference from the parents. When we follow the practices of marriage in the United States,
we can understand the customs of our world better. In Iran Before it established a new
constitution or parliament, the new regime had annulled the marriage-protection law (Nafisi
108). In Irans world, the government thought it was important to change a law to fit their culture

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better. With the new law, the people of Iran can understand their world better by understanding
the new rules or traditions for marriage.
Furthermore, in the Gatsby section of the novel Reading Lolita in Tehran the students in
the class put the book The Great Gatsby on trial. During the trial, the topic of marriage comes up.
For example, in the text it says, You dont read Gatsby, I said, to learn whether adultery is
good or bad but to learn about how complicated issues such as adultery and fidelity and marriage
are (Nafisi 133). The teacher, which in this case is the author, is the one speaking in the above
passage. She is trying to draw the students attention to the fact that Americans have different
traditions regarding marriage. The students can learn from their world about our world just by
reading an American novel. By reading a novel, our world and culture can be opened up to others
around the world. Also, the students in the class can understand their culture better by comparing
it to ours.
In the second place, tradition helps us understand our culture and world through the
structure of dance. In many traditions, people would throw dances to get large groups of people
together. The main reason for these was for the families to find eligible bachelor(ette)s for their
sons or daughters. The dances usually have a structure that all the societies would follow. For
instance, Nafisi says, the whole structure of the novel is like a dance, which is both a public and
a private act (267). Even though the author is referring to the novel Pride and Prejudice, we can
relate it to the tradition of marriage. With the different attitudes of marriage in all cultures, there
are some parts that are kept private and there are other parts that are kept public. Without the
structure of traditions, there would be no structure in which to have dances. There would have to
be new ways for the traditions to take place. In many cultures, people like to have dances of
various structures. Most people have dances because it is an easy way to celebrate the traditions

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of generations past. In a way, some dances have become a tradition of their own. For example,
schools in the US have dances to celebrate homecoming and prom. Part of their structure is when
the dances take place. In Reading Lolita in Tehran they banned ballet and dancing and told
ballerinas they had a choice between acting or singing (Nafisi 108). With the ban on ballet and
dancing, Iran is losing a part of their old tradition. Without dancing, families have to find a new
way to pick out a future husband for their daughters or vice versa.
Another area in society in which tradition can be seen is through the structure of that
society. In every society there is a structure to how it is run. Most societies build their structure
on the traditions of the past because they seemed to work for the people back then. One type of
structure in society is the rulers, or leaders of that society. The rulers are considered a part of
structure because they set up the rules for the society to follow. The rules are what help the
society function as a whole. Without the structured rulers, the world would be chaos. For
example, in Iran the ruler is the president: Our president. . . Hojatol-Islam Rafsanjani, the first
to earn the title of reformist, was the new hope, but he who called himself the general of
reconstruction and was nicknamed Ayatollah Gorbachev was notorious for financial and political
corruption and for his involvement in terrorizing dissidents both at home and abroad (Nafisi
275). The people of Iran recognize the president as the ruler of the society, just like the people of
the United States recognize Barack Obama as president. In the United States the president is the
ruler over all the people. In both places, tradition has one person be the ruler of the society so
that the people have kept it that way. By following this tradition, we can understand our cultures
and worlds and how they are run. We see other countries that do not follow this tradition and
sometimes those countries end up in chaos. We can understand that there are different types of

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leaders in the world and each society has to rely on their traditions to determine which one is the
best for them.
Finally, another tradition that some cultures value is dating. In some cultures, the value of
dating and courtship has been passed down through the generations. Unlike the cultures that
practice arranged marriages, dating allows people to get to know someone better first. In the
Islamic culture, the girls and guys do not get a chance to date. They are set up by their parents. If
they do date, it is often done in secret. In the novel, Nassrin complains about not knowing how to
date: . . . girls like me, . . . how we know nothing, nothing about the relation between a man and
a women, about what it means to go out with a man (Nafisi 297). Nassrin does not understand
her culture that she belongs to because she does not have the knowledge on how to date. She
feels like the younger generation does have that knowledge (Nafisi 297). In a way, tradition may
have changed from her generation to the next generation, and she may not understand that
change. Nassrin knows that in other parts of the world, girls her age learned how to date, but she
just did not learn. It was part of her tradition that she did not learn how to date. Her parents have
always arranged everything for her, so she did not have to do it on her own. Nassrin understands
that in her world, it is not normal for people to date, yet she cannot help feeling jealous towards
those who can. She points this out when she refers that her younger cousin knows how to date.
(Nafisi 297). From this, girls living in the United States are taught at a young age what dating is.
They learn it from some fairy tales and stories from parents. It is a part of US tradition that girls
date a guy before she marries him. In the Gatsby section of the novel, it portrays how Americans
follow the tradition of dating: Exhibit A: Jordan Baker, with whom Nick is romantically
involved (Nafisi 130). In our tradition of dating, it is very rare that someone would be
romantically involved with someone else if they were not dating that person. This relates to our

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world today because many people only become romantically involved if they are married or have
dated a long time.
In conclusion, to understand our culture and world, we have to follow our traditions.
Without traditions the world would all be the same or very different. Traditions help us to see
what it is like to live in another person's shoe.

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