Big Thanks to Your Wife

The best method of getting rid of daughters in our society is to fob them off on someone else by getting them married. Another method, though popular but not much used due to legal repercussions, is simply offing the daughters (yes, that means killing them in cold blood).

It's much cheaper too since marrying off a daughter costs more, much much more.

If you're somewhat educated and your daughter just can't be got rid off, you try to get her work.

Nothing wrong with this last approach except that sometimes the daughter wants to work in one field while the parents just want her to go into 'safe' jobs like teaching.

It's said that on average in a school year, sometimes there are 3-4 new teachers (this is not an official statistic, there's no research on this in Pakistan; what did you expect?) for the same subject since the last one is getting married.

So teaching is a safe job; you take it and when your parents have snagged you a good proposal, you just leave it. Screw the students of course.

Since most schools pay between Rs. 5-10k (about $60-100 a month) depending on the person's qualifications, they don't care either and also because there are just no regulations for teachers and schools. The ladies that go for this also don't care because they're getting what's sometimes known as make up or dowry or trousseau money.

I've heard so many older women say, but why don't you go teach! You could make some gold jewellery with the money you get...

I would get rich if I got a penny every time I've heard this. Screw you old ladies!

Then there are other safe things to do while you're waiting for prince charming to ride in on his high horse *ahem* like cooking/baking classes, or knitting and stitching classes etc. Of course, nothing wrong again with any of these things except if you're not interested in any of these and above all in marriage, then its just plain stupidity. I don't mind learning but doing things just because you're bored until you get hitched? I just never got it.

So I discovered that to my great dismay and to the increase of my killer depression that the biggest reason my parents wanted me to come back to godforsaken Pakistan was to get me married. Now I must say my parents have never been any of the above type.

Soon enough I found out why they'd turned into these people that I know even less. I'm writing about all of this today because of this small incident that happened on the phone today.

When I was coming back, unfortunately, due to my parents insistence (and other things that are better left unsaid at this time) and my health, I failed to communicate with my University. I was in the process of working on my dissertation and also preparing for exams in April.

I was told that I could take the exam from back home and get better than just go back. For my lonely and sick being, these were just the most golden words and I suppose when you're sick, most things would seem true. I'm not going to go into the fact that I was kind of tricked, which is sneaky and mean but if your parents are the ones being sneaky and mean, it's a hundred times worse, maybe more.

I knew that completing the dissertation in the butt end of the world that is Peshawar, Pakistan wasn't possible. I went for a subject, which is just now taking off in the rest of the world and most people have only heard about back home but I thought okay, I'll be coming back in a couple of months so no problem.

So, forward some 7 months and here I am, dissertation-less and very very directionless and with all these extremely bad thoughts in my mind (kill, maim, destroy: yourself).

As it is, it's not that easy to find a proposal for someone like me, not that I wanted one to be found. I've simply refused to get married all these years. The world's been after my parents and I since I was 14 years old. I didn't know that at that time but when I came to know, I realized why people feel strongly about things like that.

Anyway, here I was talking to one of my uncles, one of the many people whom my parents have forwarded my resume so they can 'help' me get a job. Thanks.

He's telling me I don't need to worry, just take my subject list to the interview I have tomorrow morning. I got a bit confused. A subject list? Yes. I didn't have one on me but I said I'll get it off my University's site. So he's like why the hell do you not have it on you? By now I understood he meant my degree and not a subject list. So I was like, I told you, I'm working on my dissertation so I don't have a degree per se.

There I heard it. He got mad at me. I just don't understand why you people come back without degrees? You really did wrong to come back without completing your studies. Whose going to give you a job like that?

It's not like I didn't know any of these things and I wish my parents would stop helping me this way because I really think I'm at the brink. If I don't die then I don't know if I won't kill myself soon. I was upset with all that. I said, we had a financial situation and I just couldn't stay there. Thanks again.

What I couldn't say and what's a big fact is that it's all thanks to his wife that I had to come back. The lady that put it in my mother's head and eventually in my father's head that I was just wasting my time and the best thing that anyone in this fucked up world could do for me was to find me a husband.

I don't like crying but since the past few years, it's become a habit. It's not easy for me to cry but I do cry. Lately though, it's getting harder. I felt like crying then and I felt like saying, you should've asked your wife. Thanks to her, the time that I wasn't home, she managed to make my younger sister's life miserable too by telling the same to my mother.

My parents are not above the blame but I can't blame them because there's this whole society made of 170 million people that puts pressure on them about what's wrong and right for their daughters or their kids.

I've never felt so stuck, so useless, so pitiable and self destructive as I did today. I just couldn't say, please thank your wife for me.

If I meet my uncle tomorrow, which is a possibility, I'll tell him that but I know I'll lose my nerve. I always say, no more miss nice girl but then I just can't.

Just end up hurting myself. So I still feel like I should weep or cry but I can't. It's just making me hoarse. Maybe I'm just a loser now.