"It is our way"

Sweet sixteen in Karachi, and everyone got on my nerves. Top contender: my driver, Miskeen. An arrogant young alpha-male Pathan, he was quick to pick fights and behaved more like an over-protective older brother than an employee. He personified chauvinism, and I hated him. When he swaggered back to his village to marry a girl a year younger than me that his parents had chosen, I was at once relieved to lose his menacing scrutiny over my budding love life, and sympathetic toward his unfortunate child-bride. 

A blissful month of broken curfews later, Miskeen returned. My mother asked him how the wedding went. His account chilled me to my bones. It still does.

After the ceremony and ensuing festivities were over, the 15 year old bride was formally given away by her family and brought to Miskeen’s father’s house. There, the women ushered her into the conjugal chamber and the men shared a final smoke. It was then, amidst Miskeen’s brothers and uncles, that Miskeen’s father gave his son a final gift for his wedding night: a large, pliable leather sandal.

To show her what her place was. 

“But… she hasn’t done anything,” Miskeen protested.

“You have to claim your power on the very first night. You have to show her so she stays in line.”

It was an order.

A less arrogant, omega-male Pathan would have bowed under the weight of an order by the family patriarch, and the pressure of keeping face in front of his fraternity. But Miskeen was not this man. He refused to beat his new bride. His father threw the newly weds out of his house and his cousins speculated on how living in the city had turned him into a hen-pecked weakling.

I aged several years in the few minutes that Miskeen relayed the story of his wedding night. Amidst the shock and horror, for the first time, I felt respect for him. It wasn’t really him that was hateful, it was the society that had bred him – and he had dared to defy it. But even as I softened toward Miskeen, I became aware of the fact that while he drove me around, his young wife was back in that village, living under his father’s roof without his protection. And it struck me that his argument for not beating her was that she hadn’t done anything. What would happen when, one day, she did “do something?” In the 14 years that have passed, I’m sure that day has occurred.

At the time, I naively imagined this to be a symptom of a backward tribal culture, but as I grew up, I took a good look around me and saw it everywhere. Different window dressing, same view, different interpretations of the same law. What kind of value system endorses violence against women as a symbol of nobility and manhood? How deeply does this wound not just the women, but the entire society? How do we begin to reverse this level of dysfunction?

I never met Miskeen’s wife, but she got me asking these questions. I’m still looking for the answers.

---Sabina

Comments

[sm]

Given that the Miskeens of this world aren't likely to identify themselves, I'm really hoping that this blog can be an avenue for us to reach out to them and educate them in an anonymous fashion.

[Ginny]

Peacemaker Marshall Rosenberg of Nonviolent Communications (NVC) believes that core values such as autonomy, peace, interdependence and integrity are universal. (He has, for example, had dramatic success in bringing historically murderous Nigerian tribesmen to recognize their common values.) His work is based on helping people with apparently disparate beliefs recognize that they do share core values. I wonder whether Chaya folks could try talking to our local "Miskeens" and their fathers about core values. They are the people we need to be trying to converse with.