Love Marriages in Pakistani Society
Love Marriage! Yes, it becomes a curse if you make your way in Pakistani society. You’ll have to learn how to live with a continuous passive indignity. Your children will be taunted if it’s a court marriage. Here, people talk about the development and the modernism, I don’t disagree with the fact and notion that Pakistani culture has evolved and its people have traveled some decades towards modernism. Yet, I dare to say that the internal depression and mental sickness of Pakistani society has overwhelmed its positive, polished features of modernism.
Let’s be open and share our individual experiences about common arranged and love marriages experiences. If you look around, you’ll find individuals sacrificing, compromising, complaining, cursing and grumbling on this unmatched relationship. You’ll also come across many house wives who keep themselves busy in house chores, tend their babies, manage their politics against in laws and then declare it an outcome of fate. They keep their focus on the things going around and how to rebut them. On the other hand, you’ll find husbands around who’d love to stay outside late nights and come to home only for showing their presence.
The male folk of our arranged marriage circle keeps on seeking one or another way to find a midway to drive satisfaction. He claims that his wife is an ideal house woman but still she is unable to bring mental pleasure to him. He doesn’t deny the services provided by her wife yet he is equally consistent on the fact that he has a complete right to seek some solace. Contradiction! Yes, this is. You’ll never find a husband admiring his wife openly. You’ll never come across such a wife who appreciates and shows respect in the absence of her spouse.
Keeping this typical hypocrisy in mind, I want you to turn towards love marriage trends in Pakistani society. Not before than a decade it was very common to hear about a roaring fuss in a family if a youngster wishes to marry against the wish of his parents. Here, I am talking about a male youngster, I can’t imagine a female youngster rebelling his father and brothers. If I have heard any such exceptional case where a girl goes against the parents’ wish, I have found the outcome entirely terrible and unbelievable. There was a list of great deprivations that the poor soul had to suffer with.
There was no acceptance for the love marriages no matters what sort of hypocrisy was very evident in case of arrange marriages. Here I am not arguing that the arrange marriages are failure or love marriages are more successful than the arranged ones. I am only talking about the social trends and the issues that love birds have to face if they are courageous enough to say no to the imposed relations. Pls be reminded my very word courageous does not mean that I am saluting them, I am just showing you a picture.
Now, sometimes, it happens that boy’s family openly accepts their son’s choice and welcomes their daughter in law. But these are very few cases and can be counted on the tips. Yes, this is very often that the family finds no other option and feels a strong fear to lose their son and says yes reluctantly. Here, the girl has to suffer and to make a compromise on her own individual identity. She has to face the music loudly. One thing is ultimate, she was the unwanted daughter of home and will be till her progeny grows up and the situation changes.
Here the tragedy is doubled. The guy is obliged and thankful to his parents and can’t think that his wife will be so ungrateful and disrespectful that she utters some complaining remarks. He is totally indifferent of what is going under his nose. Now, he is free from these pretty things as he thinks that he has many other great issues to deal outside the home premises. The girl has to face the loss of self dignity and self respect. She has to live on the told patterns. There is no way to get out of it. Once, it’s chosen now it’ll be forever.
This was the brief description and a slight comparison of the two kinds of marriages in Pakistani society. Though these issues seem trivial, yet this is open exploitation of individuals. The ultimate end is that love marriages end up and become a failure. The expectations melt and the promises are broken. The trust is dissolved and the dreams become nightmares
Here I leave my article open ended, leave your opinion, what do you say should be done to bring a positive change in society in regard of accepting love marriages.
By: Ammarah Khan
