In rural Egypt, women seek fertility help from the dead
Desperate women in Upper Egypt turn to ancient superstitions to boost their fertility with practices that can be both grisly and dangerous.
Leila Mohamed, who lives in a village in Assiut province, heads to the graveyard at dawn to meet the cemetery guard, who she has already bribed. The guard takes a body from one of the graves and Laila jumps over it seven times. The eerie ritual is supposed to help her get pregnant, but so far, it has not.
There are many other superstitions that women of Upper Egypt swear by. One involves throwing themselves on rocks and rolling over them seven times at dawn. A woman who told Mohamed of this method assured her that she knew someone who has succeeded in having children afterward. So far, all Mohamed has managed to achieve is cutting herself all over.
In Upper Egypt's conservative society, a woman’s worth is often measured in children. Large families are universally desired, and people generally have many children. Women who cannot have them suffer more than a loss of face — their husbands may divorce them and remarry to try again.
Despite medical advancements, including the availability of fertility treatments, some women still pin their hopes on old wives’ tales and tricks, particularly after visits to doctors fail to deliver. These traditional methods are not only common among women with little or no formal education, especially those who married very young. Mohamed, who is almost 30, graduated from a technical high school. She has tried more than 10 “traditional” methods to get pregnant in her eight years of marriage.
