Dear Zari: Hidden Stories from Women of Afghanistan by Zarghuna Kargar Read Free Book Online Page B

was a girl I thought it, and everything it entailed, was simply to be accepted. So when my parents chose a husband for me, I accepted their decision, telling myself, ‘Zarghuna, you’re a Pashtun girl and you should marry the man your family has chosen for you.’ I remembered the saying that a girl who accepts the wishes of her parents will never be unhappy in her future life. When I voiced any doubts, my parents told me to be a good Afghan girl and marry Javed. If I didn’t go through with the marriage, I would have to leave the family and become someone else’s daughter and never ask anything of them ever again. No matter how much I cried and told my parents that I couldn’t marry Javed because I didn’t like him, their response was always the same: ‘Hush! It’s not for a Pashtun girl to say whom she likes or wants to marry. In our family no girl has ever chosen their partner. If anyone in our family finds out you’ve been talking this way, they’ll gossip about us and we’ll never be able to show our faces amongst decent people again.’
    I was too young to make any drastic decisions of my own; new to Great Britain and the whole Western way of life, I was frightened and didn’t know what to do. I had a good job but it involved working with Afghans, most of whom knew my family; my social life revolved around going to Afghans’ houses where people would routinely curse girls who had rejected their families’ wishes and married a man of their choice. I felt like I hadno choice, and decided it was best if I married Javed. I wasn’t to know that years later I would deeply regret this decision, or that I’d eventually find the strength to confront my family and community about my feelings. But it was July 2003 and I was only twenty-one years old.
    Like so many other Afghan brides, my wedding day began in the beauty parlour. At seven o’clock in the morning my hair was curled, my eyebrows threaded, my nails polished and I had proper make-up put on for the first time. When she had finished, the beautician picked up a mirror and held it in front of me. She told me to stand up and look at myself, said I was a beautiful bride and that the groom was a lucky man. I looked at my reflection and saw the pretty white wedding dress and the way the eye-liner and mascara made my eyes look larger. I was no longer the short, dark-skinned, plain Zarghuna but a taller, more sophisticated-looking person. The beautician insisted I looked beautiful, but I didn’t believe her. I had darker skin than any of my sisters, and I had always been considered the least good-looking in my family. After the beautician took the mirror from me, I looked down. ‘One thing I should say is that even though you’re a very beautiful bride, you’re a very miserable one. You should cheer up a bit and smile on your wedding day.’ I said nothing and waited for Javed to arrive and take me to the wedding in the specially decorated car, a ‘gulposh’.
    About two hundred and fifty guests came to the wedding ceremony, and I sat up high on a dais with Javed. It was the most unhappy day of my life. Here I was, perched on a highly decorated sofa for everyone to see, embarking on a marriage that I did not want but had accepted; all because I was an Afghan woman.

Sharifa’s Story

    In Afghanistan, women usually become mothers a year or so after marriage. It’s perfectly normal for Afghan women to have up to four or five children; in fact, even that would be considered a small family. For most Afghan women the purpose of marriage is simply to have a family, but her family is not considered complete until she produces a son. Any woman who manages to give birth to a succession of sons is cherished by her husband, praised by her mother-in-law and respected by her community. In this way, the mother feels proud of having achieved what she believes she was born to do. If on the other hand a woman is unable to produce a boy, she feels a failure and her life is