The Courtesan Marries a Prince
At 32 years old, Marguerite Alibert, traveled around the world with her rich boyfriends. Her man of the moment? A wealthy business tycoon who took her on a trip to Egypt. While at a party in Cairo, she locked eyes with a handsome young Egyptian man named Ali Kamel Fahmy Bey. Later, after returning to Paris, she spotted Fahmy Bey again at a few parties in Paris. They continued to make eye contact, and he eventually walked up to introduce himself, saying that he had noticed her, and couldn’t get her off his mind. After talking for a while, he asked to see her again in private. He did not know about her past as a courtesan, so he was courting her like a lady.
The word “Bey” is an Egyptian honorary title, like “Lord”, but many people in England and France called him an “Egyptian Prince”. This piqued Marguerite’s interest, of course, since she tended to be a bit of a gold digger, willing to give any rich man a chance. However, this one seemed like he might actually be a keeper. After all, he was a young, handsome prince, completely smitten with her. Although it was a short romance, Fahmy Bey asked Marguerite to marry him.
Marguerite told him that she needed to think about it for a while, but she eventually agreed to move to Egypt and marry him. She thought that even if their relationship turned sour, she could get away with marrying him for a short period of time, and then filing for divorce, like she did with her last ex-husband. Better yet, she figured she would get a multi-million dollar divorce settlement, since he was so incredibly wealthy.
Fahmy Bey was a Muslim, and he wanted Marguerite to convert to Islam and dress modestly and cover her face like other women in Egypt. She refused to do this, and demanded to have a prenuptial agreement that if she marries him, she would be allowed to wear her western clothing and divorce him some day, if their relationship didn’t work out.
However, Fahmy Bey could probably sense that she was a gold digger, so he ripped up their prenuptial agreement only a day or two before their wedding. She had no proof that they ever agreed to those terms, and at that point, she had already converted to Islam and moved to Egypt, and she was now forced to live like the women in that culture. Fahmy Bey also announced that he was going to take on multiple wives, which was allowed in Islam. She had been totally ignorant of Egyptian customs, so she was suddenly trapped in an awful marriage without the option to get a divorce. The couple argued constantly, and the neighbors knew that they were stuck in an extremely unhappy relationship.