Maliha’s gift to her husband

Mir Mahboob Ali

M

aliha was married at a tender age. She belonged to a respectable Muslim family who had been impoverished gradually through the decline in landed property over a few decades. She had been very lucky that she passed out from the primary school as the school was within the compound of her ancestral residence. They were sort of nobles in the remote area of Bangladesh populated mostly by farmers.  In her childhood it was very, very difficult for a female child to carry on beyond primary school even in the towns. Very rarely females attended pulpits of higher education. Most of them were married even before reaching colleges, for their demand will fall rapidly inversely proportionate to their education. Very few married ladies supported by their husbands pursued higher education. Seldom would an unmarried girl set foot on the corridors of higher education.   Marriage was actually the career for women.  Most parents would, therefore, pass sleepless nights with the earliest signs of puberty in a female child. Under such conditions naturally Maliha’s movements were restricted and limitations imposed before she could even realize why. The situation still is not very encouraging in some rural areas, where majority of the population lives. In those days even in the capital it was impossible for not so rich and powerful families to send their female wards to educational institutions.

In the background of such social odds and the necessity to preserve her respectability by not letting her mix with the proletariats, since she was from the gentry, she could not continue her education.

Maliha’s was the only brick built house for miles. Her parents had no option than to let her age sitting in home or marry her as quickly as possible. Proposals were frequently received from the peasant families who for generations tilled their lands. The grooms were well educated and established and were willing to tie the knot with a reputed family declining in economic prowess. But, Maliha’s family was reluctant to suffer the embarrassment of any union with families that revered them to such an extent that even a decade ago would not dare dream such a union.

The situation was changing quickly and the basis of respectability was shifting from land-ownership to education. Education was quickly spreading to all classes of population and bringing power and respectability to ever-increasing number of people. Desperately, Maliha’s father was looking for a way out of the tight situation. In such circumstances, like a blessing from the heaven, came a proposal from a man from outside, from a far off district having no link with their region. A well-educated man, from a poor peasant family looking for respectability by marrying into a respectable family, was the prospective groom. It was not possible for him to marry into a local respectable family in his own region.

The proposal came through Maliha’s uncle a senior government servant and much revered in their family. On his advice, Maliha’s father somewhat reluctantly agreed to the proposal.  Maliha was married off in a family where she would not have been married, normally. She had no voice and no choice, like sacrificial goats sold in the market. She cried and prayed, prayed and cried. And she went to her husband’s residence keeping her liking for a cousin deep inside. Though they never expressed their love for each other their eyes spoke eloquently whenever they met.  Her wishes, her desires, her liking or disliking had no meaning. She was not treated like a human being. In her father’s house she was a burden and nothing else.

Soon after marriage the man began to reveal himself gradually. Besides respectability, wealth and influence were also on his mind. Maliha’s uncle’s status and apparent wealth, for he was not a wealthy man but resided in posh area, mislead the groom to believe that he was marrying into a wealthy respectable family.  But to his utter dismay he did not see any wealth accompanying Maliha save a handsome quantity of ornaments given at the time of marriage. Those ornaments were contributions from a large number of relatives according to the custom of the family. Rather than satisfying the groom the sizeable quantity raised his expectations.    Most of all he craved for a piece of land owned by Maliha’s brother in the adjoining area of a posh residential estate. Though the plot of land was devoid of all modern facilities and situated almost in an under developed rural setting, he was quick to discern the potential of its turning into a priced area in decades ahead.

Maliha’s husband driven by greed and the age-old notion of keeping women under strict discipline, which included physical punishment, continued his despotic behaviour of terrorizing Maliha. He used verbal and physical abuse unrestrained blaming her of fictitious shortcomings, which according to him should not go unpunished. Repeated meetings of the elders did come to nothing.  The man would behave very politely and give an impression of a perfect gentleman who would do no physical harm to even a louse.  Easily he could misguide the elders proving Maliha a liar but for the marks of torture on her body revealed through the scrutiny of female relatives.

Education could not release the man from the age-old adage of “Stri Shajay Garjanaay” (Shouting keeps wives under control: shouting is extended to mean even beating).  Custom and his upbringing forced him to assert himself every time his wife attempted to express her and contradicted him. 

The husband, professedly, a devout Muslim, for he wore a beard and prayed five times a day, apparently had little respect for women who have been raised to a lofty situation with the declaration: “Heaven for the children is under the feat of mothers.” That was in a time fourteen hundred years ago, when women were treated as nothing more than cattle by all existing religions and human society. Islam is the first religion that liberated and recognized women as intellectual beings with distinct individual identity endowed with human emotions. But man interposed, and kept them in shackles even in the name of the same religion that made them equal with man as human beings, without dislodging him as the head of the household. Man exploited the situation contrary to all norms of righteousness professed by Islam. This man was no different and he was arrogantly disrespectful to women because of his upbringing.  He was blissfully oblivious of all the demands of equity and righteousness, an integral part of Islam. In the garb of a pious man, unknowingly, he was doing disservice to Islam. Not only that, he was also maligning education, as he did not behave as an educated man that demands refinement and sophistication.

When all attempts at pacifying Maliha’s husband exhausted and Maliha’s father was contemplating a divorce for his daughter, the brother intervened with a solution as a last resort.  He proposed to gift the piece of land he owned to Maliha. Her husband first wanted the land in his name but, perhaps, education had made him see reason and he willy-nilly agreed with the proposal. No condition was attached and it was not put forward as a gift to stop brutalizing Maliha. Everybody pretended as if nothing had happened and the brother was gifting the land to Maliha as a gesture of love and affection.

In the meantime, while the process of appeasement was on, Maliha gave birth to two children, a male and a female. The father was very attached to his children and they had mellowing affect on him. They were growing fast and quickly became a deterrent to family violence. Over the years, disciplinary actions on Maliha by the self-thought upright Muslim, gradually, had become a rarity. Apparently, the gift had a profound influence on his perception of disciplining his spouse. He no longer took offence at petty matters. The gift seemingly had a humanizing affect on the Khat-Mullah (Bigoted Mullah). He even had started preaching tolerance, righteousness and justice and even women’s equal position as some of Islam’s inherent ideals, to be followed by all, irrespective of cast and creed. Some people could not resist pointing out to him his drastic metamorphosis into a sophisticated Muslim. He readily attributed that humanization to his lovely children. However, his detractors held that the gift had played a major role in humanizing the brute in him. Nobody was very sure!