Pakistani Dramas won’t Stop Romanticising Forced Marriages
The television drama is very dear to Pakistanis, especially the women. Our drama airing TV channels are among the most viewed. In the absence of an established film industry, they fulfill our entertainment quota. Due to the lack of attention to quality education, they also fulfill some of our ideology quota.
When I remarked that something going on in a new drama was absurd, my cousin replied
“بھئی ہوتا ہے تو دکھاتے ہیں ناں۔”
Such is our collective faith in the soap. It is time to question our faith.
Those who have watched even a few Pakistani dramas will have come across this motif (common theme): young (mostly)female character is busy living her life…then, either her father or influential {read landlord} suitor pressures her into saying “qabool hay” i.e saying yes to marrying aforementioned suitor…and then, as episodes go by, character’s hate/fear of the suitor miraculously turns to love.
Here. Let me give you some examples:(I will tell you about the circumstances surrounding the marriage and it’s conclusion.)
- Muqaddar (yup this is happening even in 2020)
Before Marriage: In this popular drama, a girl (the one in the picture above) is kidnapped by a landlord twice her age, kept in his home for a while and then he “marries” her. This picture shows her getting ready for the wedding. How can this be a valid marital contract? Getting married to your kidnapper…if that isn’t the farthest thing from free will I don’t know what is.
X (number of) episodes later: The couple is happy and in love.
2. Do Bol (2019)
Before marriage: No girl should should be in this state just before she’s being married off. She’s literally begging her mother to stop her impending nikah.
X episodes later: They couple is happy and in love.
3. Bashar Momin (2014)
At the wedding: I’ll describe this scene. Here, the girl is looking wistfully at the guy she actually wanted to marry. The groom knows about the guy. Since he “got” the girl and the other guy didn’t, he wears a smug impression. Does anybody else find this gross?
X episodes later:They couple is happy and in love.
4. Malaal e Yaar (2019)
This is the scene where the guy is “asking” one of the girls to marry him. Ughh…I’m not even going to try to explain.
X episodes later: The couple is happy and in love.
5. Asseerzadi (2013)
In this wonderful* drama, the girl agrees to marry the guy after several instances of her father saying things like “
“اپنی زندگی بچا لو۔ اپنے باپ کی پگڑی داؤ پر لگا دو۔
Yup. Her loving father said that. That definitely sounds like emotional blackmail to me.
X episodes later: the couple is happy and in love.
*Still, I do think this drama is wonderful because the same girl goes on to single-handedly topple an oppressive landlord’s throne.
OK, so you get the pattern here. A pattern of what?
I knew that asking someone to say yes to a marriage at gunpoint is wrong, obviously, but this video by Islamic scholar Nouman Ali Khan opened my eyes to the other ways in which a marriage can be forced. Even psychological pressure or emotional blackmailing by family members can damage the validity of the Nikah(marital contract). Under such pressure, the verbal approval of the person to be married could be void. Now this is serious. Living your life with a person who you’re supposed to be married to but aren’t… that’s a disturbing thought.
I’ll say it again: Consent to Nikah under pressure IS NOT CONSENT.
Pakistani dramas either don’t know about this or they don’t care.These forced marriages have been shown in Pakistani dramas time and again. The forcing is mostly implicit; it’s emotional. This makes it more palatable to the viewer and hence the subcontinental norm of this kind of marriage is perpetuated… Desi parents marry off their unwilling children without paying heed to the validity or harmful consequences of such a marriage. Drama serials portray this norm as if it is perfectly harmless. Nobody points out the harm. The harm continues.
An argument can be made that the drama industry is just portraying the reality of Pakistani culture. My problem with this “portrayal” is twofold:
Firstly, the oppressive nature of a forced marriage is hardly ever pointed out. As seen above, the couples in these marriages almost always follow this trajectory of loathing each other, then giving in and accepting their spouse and then falling madly in love with each other. As if forced marriage is the perfect foundation for a beautiful, loving relationship. *shudders*
Some might say that the girl does cry for a few episodes after the wedding. OK, that demonstrates the emotional burden. That does not demonstrate the intrinsic invalidity of such a Nikah, which is the second part of my problem with the portrayal. Everybody around these characters being cornered into a marriage acts like whats going on is simply unfortunate.They act like it’s tragic. Have-to-go-for-open-heart-surgery tragic. They don’t act like it’s wrong. Like it’s why-is-this-happening-in-a-free-country wrong.
In an ideal Pakistan, people would already know this is wrong and the dramas wouldn’t be ale to get away with it. Education, both school education and religious, would be common enough. We’re quite some way from ideal Pakistan. As it is right now, 40% of Pakistanis can’t read or write. 49% are under eighteen years of age and thus cannot be expected to evaluate the rights and wrongs of television content. So… it isn’t a question of whether the industry is doing any harm. It is a question of whether we can prevent it from doing any further.
Right now the only thing we can do is educate ourselves and others, especially on Islam. If you want more information on the Islamic perspective on forced marriages, visit this link: She was forced to marry someone she did not want.— Islam Question & Answer
