Asma Akter Sathi(Translated by Sadia Rahman):
Oh my god! Sister! You still haven’t married your girl off! Is there any problem? You will face difficulty later. If you need then seek some advice/help. There are really few mothers who haven’t faced questions like this or statements like- if your girl is over educated you won’t get a husband for her.
Every mother who has an unmarried girl home is familiar with these scenarios. Not only is the mother, the girl is also familiar with these. It is like marriage is the only life goal for a girl. They cannot have any other targets. What am I supposed to say?
Even in this twenty first century world our girls have to face these tolerate these questions. It needs time to settle down in a career. How many people get that? They have to get married sacrificing themselves just to satisfy the society.
This does not mean my stand is against marriage. But everyone should have the liberty to get married when they wish to, to stay in a marriage only if they feel like- that is my point.
I am marking it as sacrifice because there are very few girls in our society who gets to live life according to their will after marriage. Marriage is a sharp weapon here to wound women’s life. From our grandmother’s generation to our mother and aunt’s: the scenery is all the same.
Case study 1: Lima (disguised); she had a great desire for studies. She wanted to complete studies and join administration. She had that caliber too. She always had been a good student in school. She was so much into studies that somehow when she missed star marks in S.S.C she became sick psychologically. She could not accept the result. It was really hurtful to seer. She could not recognize us, she didn’t talk to us. She was just staring blankly. After that by her parent’s hard work and treatment she survived. Even before she completed her H.S.C., she was married off to a cousin who lived abroad. She lives there too now. She appears to live a good life, with access to lot of money and ornaments. But her frustration of leaving studies incomplete is still very much visible.
Case study 2: (adapted from facebook) There was a girl who loved poetry very much. Not only was that she good at writing poetry too. She lived in a “Masud Rana” generation. She Spent time being absorbed in Masud Rana. But the scenario was changed after marriage. She was even refrained from reading poetry so no question about writing may arise, and Masud Rana? That was out of the landscape. She was forbidden from looking at Masud Rana’s picture. Her get up, appearance was changed drastically.
After asking the reason she replied she wanted to keep her marriage at any cost. Her husband was a Jamat activist. So, under his territory there was no place for poetry. If you abide by those your marriage will sustain otherwise it will be destroyed by just three words. So, once a creative girl became good wife scarifying everything. She would have been a famous poet.
Case study 3: Personally I don’t feel like scolding women militants. I feel the person who forced her to do that is the main culprit. No girl is born as a militant. No one come as a militant from father’s house to husband’s house. In fact they become like that after coming to in laws house. Khadija, Morjina, Priyoti, Sheela all of them, how they joined militant groups- we all know that.
One of them was a job holder after completing graduation from journalism of University of Dhaka.She was forced to take this path under her husband’s influence. First her husband influenced her to perform hijrat and then come to the path of kkhelafat. When she disagreed her husband followed the way alone, leaving her behind. So to save her marriage she agreed to come to the way of hijrat. She even left her job for her husband.What happened after that we all know the consequences. Poor girl! She graduated from Dhaka University. What a fool’s life she used to live!
In our society wives don’t have the capability to go against their husbands will. If husband says the sun rises in west and sets in east – the wives are obliged to accept that. Otherwise there will be troubles.
In our society the examples are very few where husband and wife hold different morals, but still happy with each other. If the wife wishes to establish his point then there is no other way. Just three words and she will have to leave the house. This is the cruel reality of our society,
There are so many women for whom it’s not possible go on without husband. I know the case of one couple- where the husband often beats his wife after being drunk. But the wife doesn’t leave him. After going through the hassles of police cases, courts- she lives in the same house. The reason is the the same as many others. Where will she go with five children? She doesn’t earn by herself that she’ll go alone on the way.
Even after that, there are some other complications when you go alone in your way. I will write about that some another day. If you want to live with dignity making your head straight up, there is no other way than being independent. Along with that one has to be brave to take the right decision when time comes. There is no credit in being Khadija.
Asma Akter Sathi is Journalist and Teacher by Profession.The original article was published in the Bengali site on June 6, 2017.
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Sadia Rahman is a final year student of English literature,Rajshahi University. Other than writing, her passions include writing, debating and anchoring.