When the Sky Fell

Of all the silken women of the East, few have been more diligently trained in eye-fluttering subservience than the reed-slim Tonkinese and Annamese maidens of South Viet Nam. But when President Ngo Dinh Diem proclaimed his nation's independence two years ago, his newly enfranchised countrywomen began to remold their personalities under the leadership of the President's keenly intelligent sister-in-law, beauteous, sloe-eyed Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu. With the help of her enormous charm and an occasional whisk of a sandalwood fan, Madame Ngo got herself elected to South Viet Nam's National Assembly, helped elect five other woman Deputies, and launched a drive for legislation banning 1) polygamy, 2) divorce, and 3) arranged marriages.

The tempest churned up by the sandalwood fans in Saigon has rustled palm fronds and stirred feminine emotions across the land. Last week all Saigon was astir with the story of Co Ha, an 18-year-old maiden of Going Ving, a thatched-hut village 40 miles southwest of the capital.

Lemonade Lather. By the molten chocolate ribbon of the mighty Mekong River, Co Ha and the bridegroom whom her father had selected sat down before a long table set out with roast chickens, pig, steaming white rice, and jar after jar of yellow rice wine and white-lightning chum-chum. Despite the wedding finery that set off her lustrous black hair, the bride-to-be sat among the wedding guests blinking back her tears. She had already protested that she did not want to marry the wealthy but middle-aged landowner chosen by her father, that her true love was a penniless farm boy named Nguyen Van Sa. While the guests downed the food and wine, Co Ha watched and waited from the traditionally isolated bride's chair at the end of the table. When the men began to nod with drink, Co Ha knew her moment had come.

Co Ha doused her hair in sweet lemonade, and before her father, the bridegroom or any of the guests could recover their senses, shaved herself bald--which to good Buddhists signifies the renunciation of all fleshly pleasures and was, therefore, a flaming insult to the groom.

Saved from Suicide. Co Ha's father grabbed his head with his hands and moaned: "The sky is falling over my head." Tradition bound him to repay the insulted bridegroom with twice as much jewelry as he had given his betrothed, plus twice as many pigs and chickens as had been provided for the wedding feast. It was too much. Ha's father jumped into the Mekong, bent on self-destruction. But Co Ha's true love, watchfully waiting near by, dived into the river and saved him. Broken in spirit, Co Ha's father had to give his consent to the happy young couple.

When her hair grows out, Co Ha will marry the man of her choice. Her father, facing a protracted period of disgrace, went home to count his diminished wealth and mutter imprecations against modern notions. Across the land, Saigon's press reported a sharp increase in shaven-headed maidens, a sharp decrease in arranged marriages. Encouraged, Madame Ngo pressed on.

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