The Stigma of Divorce in Pakistan

Hap­pi­ly Ever After
Get­ting mar­ried is a giant leap of faith. You give up your inde­pen­dence and free­dom to be half of a whole; and it feels right while you are tak­ing the deci­sion. Well… maybe not right, but in Pak­istan ‘right’ is what you are expect­ed to feel, even if every cell in your body is scream­ing oth­er­wise. Wel­come to the world of Arranged and Part­ly-Arranged Mar­riages. I use the term Part­ly-arranged to define mar­riages where the ‘boy’ and ‘girl’ (not man and woman, mind you) know each oth­er, and the fam­i­lies from both sides come into the pic­ture to take the final deci­sion. If the fam­i­lies judge the match to be ‘accept­able’, the deal is final­ized. Oth­er­wise, love or no love, the cou­ple has to break up.

Once the knot is tied, the girl leaves her home to go and live with the boy’s fam­i­ly. In the new sur­round­ings, she’s expect­ed not only to adjust imme­di­ate­ly, but to love, respect, nur­ture and serve the whole extend­ed fam­i­ly. And three cheers for Pak­istani women, because they do. Even before know­ing who they are going to mar­ry, they are ready for the respon­si­bil­i­ties of a new life, a new home, a dif­fer­ent role and a new fam­i­ly. The man’s fam­i­ly becomes the new bride’s first pri­or­i­ty while her own needs and her own fam­i­ly take the back­seat.

Beyond Hap­pi­ly Ever After
Once the girl mar­ries some­one (oh did I say ‘mar­ries’? I meant ‘gets mar­ried’. My apolo­gies to all con­cerned). Once a girl gets mar­ried, she becomes the hus­band’s respon­si­bil­i­ty. And let’s not mis­un­der­stand any­thing here, girls love it. Now, what hap­pens in the major­i­ty of mar­riages, in our soci­ety, is that instead of being con­sid­ered a respon­si­bil­i­ty, where the hus­band is respon­si­ble for lov­ing, sup­port­ing, pro­tect­ing and tak­ing care of his wife, the wife often becomes a prop­er­ty and a slave. Again, I will clar­i­fy that it does­n’t hap­pen in all mar­riages in Pak­istan; there are plen­ty of good and enlight­ened peo­ple around. I am only speak­ing of a per­cent­age of the whole.

So in the set­ting of a mar­riage where the woman is expect­ed to give every­thing and expect lit­tle, it’s nat­ur­al for the woman to feel dis­sat­is­fied and unful­filled. Again, the women here find ways to adjust with, and accept the less than per­fect treat­ment they are receiv­ing. Why? Because fam­i­ly uni­ty is con­sid­ered the most impor­tant thing in the soci­ety. This is of course right­ly so, as it pro­vides sup­port, secu­ri­ty and con­ti­nu­ity to every­one. Plus, as every­body knows, life can’t be per­fect!

How­ev­er, what hap­pens if the two main play­ers in this chess­board of mar­riage in the back­ground of close-knit fam­i­lies, and a con­ser­v­a­tive soci­ety, don’t get along? What they do is that they ignore it for as long as pos­si­ble, and then one or both par­ties try to fig­ure out ways to bridge the dif­fer­ences and the gaps. Some­times that works. At oth­er times, humans being humans, the dif­fer­ences can’t be bridged and the prob­lems can’t be solved, par­tic­u­lar­ly if they are of seri­ous nature like ver­bal or phys­i­cal abuse, sus­pi­cion, a deep revul­sion, infi­deli­ty or sex­u­al per­ver­sions or dys­func­tion.
The nature of the issues notwith­stand­ing, if the sit­u­a­tion esca­lates and is brought to the atten­tion of fam­i­ly mem­bers, the elders of the fam­i­ly try to sort through the muck to save the rela­tion­ship and chil­dren. Yet again, the bur­den of blame and respon­si­bil­i­ty and guilt is usu­al­ly put on the wom­an’s shoul­ders. Isn’t she sup­posed to com­pro­mise and sac­ri­fice for the sake of every­one? What kind of upbring­ing has she had? What kind of a moth­er gave birth to such a vocal, stub­born and self­ish woman? Isn’t she sup­posed to keep every­thing under wraps, and main­tain a glossy veneer of con­tent­ment and joy?

Reper­cus­sions
Sup­pose, the hus­band and wife can’t live togeth­er due to some ill­ness, or one of the two is a homo­sex­u­al and has just fig­ured it out, or because there is vio­lence in the rela­tion­ship. Under those cir­cum­stances what would you do? Part ways, right?
Wrong.

The whole of the soci­ety will make sure that it’s the most dif­fi­cult thing you’ve ever done in your life. Sep­a­ra­tion and divorce are hard on any­one; the psy­cho­log­i­cal, emo­tion­al and finan­cial set­backs are enough to tear a soul to tat­ters, along with the sense of fail­ure, guilt and regret over what could have been done to keep the mar­riage going. Even when it’s clear that every­thing that could have been done was done, it’s hard, very hard to make lit­tle kids under­stand why they have a dif­fer­ent home and lifestyle and some­times even a dif­fer­ent school. It rips your heart apart see­ing your chil­dren going through emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal tur­moil.

Fac­tor in the role the soci­ety assumes: of judge and jury. Of smug self-sat­is­fied spec­ta­tors, who loved you when you were putting up with the tor­ture and liv­ing in mis­ery, with their anec­dotes and sym­pa­thy, with their recipes to make it work, or make life hell for the ones who are respon­si­ble. Now they berate you, accuse you of unspeak­able crimes, call you names, all behind your back. Because in refus­ing to be a vic­tim or a mar­tyr, you have chal­lenged the core that sur­vives and thrives on the chance to pity the under­dog, not help and sup­port.
Dis­grace

How you man­age to get a divorce in this coun­try is a top­ic wor­thy of anoth­er detailed dis­cus­sion. All I will say here is that it’s a night­mare of mam­moth pro­por­tions, and what hap­pens after­ward is beyond descrip­tion. You aren’t respect­ed for who you are, only judged by the fail­ure of your rela­tion­ship. No one wants to know beyond that you are divorced. It does­n’t mat­ter why it hap­pened. Well, it should­n’t. It’s a per­son­al mat­ter. But soci­ety will give a ver­dict any­way. Con­grat­u­la­tions, you are now an out­cast.
“Self” for a woman should be nonex­is­tent, the patri­ar­chal soci­ety has decid­ed. A woman is respectable only in the role of a wife, moth­er, sis­ter, daugh­ter and so on. Woe betide any woman who dares to say “no” to domes­tic vio­lence, or one who can’t live a hypocrisy, one who decides to look for hon­esty and truth, who refus­es to put up with a crim­i­nal part­ner.

A very lucky woman may find her fam­i­ly sup­port­ive, but most women aren’t lucky in Pak­istan. Most par­ents still pre­fer that they don’t have to go through their daugh­ter’s divorce. Most par­ents feel it’s an embar­rass­ment that their daugh­ter could­n’t remain mar­ried. The major­i­ty of women in Pak­istan stay at home, so it’s a huge finan­cial under­tak­ing to look after a divorced or even wid­owed daugh­ter. The cher­ry on this cake made of muck is the fear that a divorced woman will not be able to get mar­ried again. Why? Because her char­ac­ter, her sanc­ti­ty and her depend­abil­i­ty are now ques­tion­able, taint­ed and on tri­al.
The divorced Pak­istani woman is, after years of being chained, now free…
…only to be whipped for the rest of her years.