Wicked Old Woman: a tale of incest in Oman?

You know how in the West marrying your first and second cousins is against the law because it's veiwed as them being like brothers and sisters and it's all a big taboo? Well in Oman, marrying someone your mother breastfed, or the son or daughter of someone who breastfed you, is the same. Such people are regarded as your siblings Islamically, and you can't marry them. A man whose mother breastfed me for exampe, would never think of marrying me, and the rules of "hijab" dressing" headscarf and abaya ect, wouldn't apply between us, as we'd be just like brother and sister.

Well once upon a time in my village, not so very long ago, there lived a happily married couple, but like any fairytale, when you get your happy ending too soon, some wicked old witch is going to show up and curse you both to a life of trial and tribulation.

An old woman showed up one day and in front of the entire village accused the couple of incest. She claimed and swore that she had breastfed the girl, and that made the man and his wife milk brother and sisters in Islam. Islamically, the only thing to be done was to divorce eachother.

Many years later on her death bed, fearing the punishment she was about to recieve from Allah, the wicked old woman later recanted her story, and said she had lied, and the young couple whose life she had turned into a misery were in no way whatsoever related, and that she'd lied. Then she died.

No one ever knew whether it was jealousy for their happiness or something she'd had against the girl marrying into her family that caused her to conjur the whole blasphemous lie.

The life of shame the young couple had endured when their happiness was stolen from them was finally laid to rest, but unlike in the fairytales, it was too late for them to reclaim any of that former happiness together, but for their own honor and integrity in the community, and a sense of ease in their own conscience.

I wish that all the old women in Oman (and I know tales of quite a few) who seek to ruin a young woman's happiness, be revealed for their true intent, which is never honour and goodness or the "sake of Islam" or anything even close.

I know also that the tale of this old woman has become an old folktale in our region of Oman, but it is a true story, and the couple who had their happiness ruined by her are still living on the date of this post.