The “D” Word

Welcome to Chowk and thank you for a well written and well reasoned essay.

aisha:

welcome to chowk!

there is nothing ugly about divorce...it is manifestly better than a rocky marriage that is held together under societal or social pressures only...

one thing that does appear awkward here...how can all six of you consent to bad partners?... were you all married off at the same time?

lve

t

walk away before breakfast .........

........... most desi couples should be divorced ..........and it is not only because the world has too many desis and most off them will end up producing offspring that is, to put it mildly, aesthetically offensive .............okay, butt ugly, if you insist ........ but, it is simply because this so-called institution of arranged marriages is an abomination to start with .......... it worked fine when men were men and women and children were not allowed to be seen or heard in public .......... but it does not work when women are allowed to do silly things like wear pants, drive and vote and children watch mtv .......... and really, if you think about it, most arranged marriages are like one night stands .......... if you jump into bed with someone who you are meeting for the first time, what do you expect ?......... a lot of people would walk away before breakfast if it wasn`t for tha fact that ami jan had cooked up a heap of parathas and ordered enough nihari for the extended family ..................

I remember reading a University of Chicago article about the happiness levels in people. At the highest happiness level were married men, then single women followed by single men and finally at the bottom married women!! The reason is that married men have the most options due to their economic status. Single women are next because of their obvious control over men. Single men are lower because they are typically younger with lesser economic means and they still have to fight hard to get sex. Finally are the married women who dont have any options left and are the most undesirable, espcially with kids.

Yet, almost every single woman I have ever met in my life dreams of getting married. It is not just a family pressure issue back in India/Pakistan. Even in USA, single gori girls, single asian girls, in fact, any single girl that I have ever interacted with is on the lookout for a life partner. Who can explain this contradiction?

Aisha,

can it be you?

As a woman who has faced and outfaced in that order: a love marriage, divorce and single parenting here is my two bits from the other side. Not the side who wonders, but the side who went ahead and did it:

1. An unmanned woman in Pakistan is considered to be like an unmanned ship, redundant and purposeless.
2. Life after divorce is equal to or in some ways even worse than being in a marriage. Remember that a woman is always seen as a liability, society accords her a shelf life according to factors that are clearly beyond her control.
3. Marriage with your soul mate is also not easy.
4. The best way for a woman to get through marriage is to pretend you arent married and keep on growing your identity. Be emotionally strong.
5. Romantic love is possible, just not for 99.99% of people on this planet. The 0.01% who do have it, either cant have it for some reason, dont know if they have it or die. (Romeo and Juliet, Shireen Farhad, blah )
6. The grass is always greener on the other side. Why rock the boat unless you have to?
7. Having said all of that, living alone is not an easy choice. By alone, I mean NO one. no mom, sister family or servant. Live alone and bring up a kid or two. I`d put it as a very hard task both emotionally and physically. You better have some good friends out there. And someone who catches u when u fall--family is ideal.
8. Having said all this, do I regret my choices in life?
9. No. I wont give up one day of the past 10 years to be a safe mrs to some nincompoop--meeting basic survival but nothing else. I am free, I am me and that joy is unsurpassable.
10. Let me say this again. It isn`t easy at all. But you will find yourself, you will see who you are so clearly that there can never be any excuse, any lie in you again. But spiritual growth is painful, very painful, it is easier by far to complain crib and suffer small issues than to actually fight them. Eternal questions haunt one: ``whether `tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune or by taking arms end them?``

regards

Saima

Great post, Saima. Hope to read more from you as well.

Ayesha:

[Marriage is a part of life only and not life itself. And like everything in life can sometimes break down but with it life does not end too.]

That is an extremely valid point. My only concern is that an individual should not come to the above conclusion after getting a hit in life. She should entertain that approach prior to embarking the journey of marriage, parenting, divorce, remarriage, and LIFE.

Marriage is not only about romance. It is far serious decision with too many aspects. All I can say every of people involved in this decision taking equation must act wisely. As one wrong move can spoil many things linked not only with man and woman involved but also their families and friends.

Aisha,

Your problem is straight and simple, you were educated in convent schools. Sad that zia did not close these warts on pak society. You should have gone to the madrassa, became the Nth wife of a sheikh and lived happily ever after.

Why cant you do something about this malady, start a movement to close such mind warping schools of pakistan

I`m not going to vouch for guys or girls, men or women, husbands or wives, I think this divorce issue is not restricted to the female gender. There are many men out there who have found themselves on the wrong side of the boat as well.

I think its our culture, its our lack of pure Islamic values, its our rapid immature modernization and westernization, and its a growing indication of individualism that has crept into our society.

Unfortunately, we will end up in a society with all of us divorced :) and the few remaining marriages will be based on political and economic alliances as opposed to mutual love and understanding.

I am really inspired by your ideads and your looking through our social metaphore which could cange by efforts by courageous people like you.

Marriage is a tie till you come to end of your life.And if hampers your identity and self respect than people just linger with compromises. However a proper settled decision keeping in mind all aftereffects including the belongings (kids, parents) should be duly taken. So ``D`` action doesn`t led more worse plights.
The way of taking divorce is also not properly handled. It seems as when woman/men is totaly bleak from sufferings and when the whole society knows that they can`t live together or there are so many solid reasons tan a woman can be guaranted a divorce otherwise she is thought with wrong ideas.
However separating is just as important decision as binding in marriage is.

This was really a good read.

Keep Your individuality and struggle going on.

Cheers,

Saima`s point 1 is so true...and it really gets on my nerves.

A divorced man is considered no big deal while a divorced women is pretty much black listed. Such rubbish...

I recall a while back my brother being introduced to a girl, who it turned out was divorced. The two hit it off, and she was a very adorable person. He was okay with the fact that she was divorced, even though he had never married. My mother, on the other hand, was just too third world in her attitude...and too stubborn to bother with.

I don`t know where this attitude comes from...well, aside from that whole virgin bride thing...

Strange attitude this, especially from conservative Muslim societies since our earliest religious figures had no qualms with marrying the divorced...

Aisha:

It`s a wonderfully written article, a bit of your personal history puts the frustrations in context. You haven`t had any articles published on Chowk, but you write fluently and coherently, so there must be more where this came from.

S

Beautifully and innocently written article.One thing that needs to be highlighted more is that Islam is not that regressive towards rights of women as is made out to be.Its more about citizens of male chauvinistic societies looking down upon women who seek to question their rights according to Islam. As I have said before,the interpretation of islamic laws have to be taken out of the hands of the male chauvinist mullahs, and more than half of the problems will be solved.
SaimaShah #5
Sometimes divorces happen because of kids,not inspite of them.I know of at least one mother who has taken a stand that the kid is not going to grow up in an atmosphere where the mother is abused and there is constant bickering.For one, maybe we are raising another generation of mcp`s that way who expect the woman to be taken for granted.
Secondly, I strongly believe that a child in a peaceful divided family has more chances of sanity and a normal life.
But the more important reason is that struggle is its own reward sometimes.It is not about a soulmate or love. It is about independence and living your own life the way you want to, having your own joys and sorrows .I know you have hinted on all that, but women have for so long been culturally conditioned to have a different centre of universe of their life than their own self,like family , kids, husband etc., and giving up on their identity to become emotionally and financially dependent on someone else, that I find the overall tenor of your post disturbing , to say the least.
amit #4 You are comparing the result of a study to your personal experience, so it is only you who can explain this contradiction, to yourself.

For the man marriage is the most horrible relationship between the man and the woman. It almost always ends in bitterness if not earlier than after the menopause when the woman, what they call in Punjabi, becomes a `Phunder`, a sexless object. It is a biological fact that male is the stable form of all the living beings whereas the female is an unstable biological phenomenon, created for a limited expireable purpose of procreation, aptly described as ‘Kheti’ (tilth) in the Quran. As it is the institution of marriage is inherently a temporary arrangement only for the benefit of the woman and the children. As for the man he can have more enjoyable relationships with the ‘na-mehram’ women, like ‘Muttah’, ‘loundi-keep’, etc., etc. So I will advise the writer to be honest and not be selective in qouting Hadees only. She should realize that the most honourable option for relationship, which a woman can have with a ‘na-mehram’ man, is the marriage.

Married life sucks in several ways … I once tried to acknowledge this to my younger sibling, who, as I had heard, was having a rough time adjusting to being married. Here’s part of the message I sent … for kicks …

++++++++++

Bhaiyya … welcome to the world of marriage. From here on everything goes downhill.

So dude ... marriage life is roughing you up ... bhai, hum ney to kaha tha ... magar aap na manay ... ab bhugtiyae. Abbu is right ... this is life ... and that`s it. The beginning of the end ... the mother of all crises. It`s like being sucked into a black hole … the world starts spinning … dizzying speed … time dilation … you are falling through space ... everything is fading away ... last thing you remember is iblees whispering something in your ear. Devilish laughter ... cold shivers … your mind goes numb.
Lights out.

… rrrrrrring ... huh? It`s the alarm clock ... time to get up and to start your day … you kiss your wife, trying to remember what day it is. Yes, definitely a working day. You rush to the bathroom wondering if you can do without shaving. No, meeting with the client ... so definitely a tie day ... which means the blue shirt with full sleeves ... but what about the ketchup stain on the side ... well it`s not too visible ... should be ok. You see a bottle of opium on the counter as you brush your teeth. Yes, you remember ... you gave one to Sana on her birthday ... or did you? You know you bought one ... maybe you gave it to Saeeda on the Valentine`s day ... Oh god ... these memories are like bad pennies ... always there at a bad time ...

Knock on the door ... wife wants to know if you`ll have french toasts for breakfast ... you mumble something as you rinse your mouth. She takes it as a yes and rushes to the kitchen ... hoping to help her husband start his day right. After all, breakfast is the most important meal of the day, she remembers her mother telling her… as she tries to mimic the role of a dutiful wife ...

He he heeeeeee ... I am rolling with laughter as I type this ... Oh god ... life takes a sharp turn. And what can you do? Nothing much, I am afraid. So dude, roll with the punches ...laugh a little at yourself every now and then ... and hope it`ll all be ok some day.

later, Asad