I distinctly remember being told by an uncle when I was thirteen that learning how to make tea was more important than learning algebra because a good cup of tea would be required of me when I got married. He declared that being able to solve a linear equation was pointless because in five years I would be married and in seven years, I would have my first child. While my life did not follow that trajectory, nor did I want it to, that comment a decade ago has shaped my understanding of what it means to be a woman. It clearly communicated that education for a woman was not a high priority. Being intelligent was not as important as being a phenomenal cook, and being married was the end goal.
For many of my friends, marriage was the ultimate priority. Some of my friends were married right after high school graduation; the parents of a few had the decency to wait until after their daughters graduated college. The parents of those of my friends who are still single frantically pore through the biodata of potential husbands before the shelf life of their daughters’ marriage eligibility expires. Marriage is not a choice—it is the inevitable end for all respectable Pakistani girls. The longer a woman stays unmarried, the more people begin to question her reputation and her ability to be a good wife. Marriage becomes a race to sit on a wedding stage with an eligible man by one’s side, wear all the gold jewelry found in Jackson Heights, and smile demurely from beneath false eyelashes.
The women I know had little autonomy over their own marriages; they were encouraged to marry men their parents presented to them for the sake of the family. This tradition is not necessarily a bad one. My parents met once before they got married, and they celebrated their Silver Jubilee one month ago, so the traditional method of marriage works for many couples. Even among my generation, many of my friends are happily married to the men their parents chose for them. They have become perfect housewives and put adorable pictures of them with their husbands on their Facebook profiles as a not so subtle celebration of their success in marriage.
This trend alarms me. It’s not so much the idea of parents playing a large role in finding their children’s spouses that disturbs me, but how readily these bright, motivated young women relinquish their careers and independence. These women wanted to be engineers, financial consultants, or small business owners. Now, they’re interested in where to shop for a newborn or what stores sell the freshest tomatoes. I cannot demean these interests if these wives choose to remain at home. If it is a choice, I recognize it as a valid one. Yet when so many Pakistani women who are raised in a competitive, independent American environment where women are encouraged to obtain a higher education and enter the work force, choose not to, I question whether they were actually given the freedom to choose.
Pakistani society has subtly but clearly pinpointed the appropriate roles for women, and places significant pressure on women to conform to these conventions. If women are told from a young age that respectable Pakistani girls get married when their parents wish them to and focus not on their education but on their husbands and families, they will internalize this message. Thus, when a woman chooses not to work or not to pursue higher education, she is not choosing so much as succumbing to societal pressures to live up to the standards of respectability that Pakistani society has established. One may argue that she is the one who quits her job or throws away those college applications, but upon examination of the societal expectations of women, it becomes clear that for many Pakistanis, a woman’s primary role is to take care of her family. It is tacitly understood that after marriage, a woman should focus only on her family. A woman who chooses to pursue an independent path places her reputation in jeopardy. When so much rests on a woman’s reputation—for example, her family’s respectability and her marriage eligibility—many women find that they have no choice but to conform to the standards that Pakistani society has established for them.
Yet circumscribing women’s roles within the narrow framework of marriage undermines the significant contributions that women can make to society. Malcolm X stated that the development of a society can be judged by the progress of its women. The more actively women are involved in society, whether it be in the workforce or in education, the further that society will develop. In America, Pakistani immigrants are given the unique opportunity for social progress. The best way to retard this progress will be to deprive our women of sharing it.
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