The Guarded Heart: Choosing Safety Over Intimacy
My favorite cousin, whom I lovingly called 'Baji,' was the first woman in our family to get a corporate job. Not only was she a competent professional, but also designed and tailored her own clothes and painted wall murals. She was very creative. She was earning well, and her lifestyle was evolving—a woman earning her own money was a rarity back then (around 2006) in Pakistan. Baji used to shop for herself and her family, and her quality of life was improving by the day.
We, her younger female cousins, looked up to her. We admired her life, her financial freedom, and her flourishing career. We loved the way she dressed, and we admired her modern ways of thinking. She was our role model; we all wanted to become her.
One day, a rishta (an arranged marriage proposal) came. Baji was 27. She had three younger siblings with a genetic disorder. While Baji seemed to have escaped the disorder, her parents were fearful she would not find a good match because of the family's medical history. They thought it was best to get her married as soon as they could. Her marriage was seen as the ultimate metric of success for her life, overriding her educational and professional achievements.
The man was the only son to his parents and he had seven sisters. Baji's parents ignored the red flags concerning the family's way of life and values. She was pushed to get married, and disaster struck. This decision completely turned her life upside down. Baji's value was fundamentally tied to being "taken" by a man or family, regardless of the quality of that union.
The father-in-law expected Baji to do all the household chores for the family—including the seven sisters, their husbands, and their children. All this was expected alongside her full-time office job. They started piling so much housework on her that she eventually succumbed and quit her job because it became impossible to manage both.
New struggles started. Baji had her first child and no money. The situation at home deteriorated, and the husband, along with his father and sisters, continued to be verbally and physically abusive.
Baji reached out to her mother asking for help. No help was made available. Separation wasn't an acceptable solution because, in our society, the permanency of a relationship is of greater value than a woman's safety or happiness. This leaves women open to abuse.
Now, her children are growing up in an abusive environment. Her husband is an absent father, and Baji lives a life of fear without financial support.
Baji changed from being a role model to now being an example of how crucial it is not to give up control of our lives. Unfortunately, there are many such stories around me. It makes me believe there are no good men out there. It feels safer to shut the doors to romantic love in my life. I am scared to even try.
My experiences of seeing the suffering of women in the hands of patriarchy have shaped a lot of my beliefs. My ambition of becoming fiercely independent was fueled by fear, because the men around me were not dependable. Having supportive parents who did not force me to get married tremendously helped me. I could excel through school, college, and university. I even got a full scholarship to study at a prestigious Master's program in Europe. Now, I work at a multinational company, earn my own money, and travel around the world. I am proud of my achievements.
While all this is great, a big part of me still grieves from seeing the sorry state of women around me. The issue is systemic: men are often raised to be the 'golden child' and retain the entitlement, privilege, and dominance their gender accords them. This prevents us from creating a healthy society where men and women are equal and stops us from building marriages based on mutual respect, trust, equality and companionship.
I have achieved a lot, yet a part of me feels very vulnerable. I feel nervous about inviting a man into my life. The fear is real because the system allows men to take that power away. What a way to live—to not be able to trust the opposite gender! This fear is rooted in Baji's reality: "What if they turn out to be abusive? What if my freedom is taken away from me? What if I were to lose my voice?"
My independence is not simply a choice; it's a trauma response to the patriarchy's threat of control and abuse. Achieving freedom has required sacrificing the possibility of intimacy.
- Roshni, Lahore, Pakistan
