When I Hit You: Or, A Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife

by Meena Kandasamy

‘I do not ask you to marry me because I love you and you love me. I do not ask for you to marry me because this is the thing that people in love do. I do not ask you to marry me because I believe in marriage or because I believe in this society. I do not ask you to marry me because we can live together night and day or because I would die if I do not get to wash your underwear with my own delicate hands. I do not ask you to marry me because I want to be your dazzling trophy wife, or because I can be the gold-digger who married up, up, up above her status. ‘I want you to marry me because I want to confront the reasons why you refuse to marry me. When you fail to take even a step towards marriage, I want to know why this idea does not exist on your horizon. I want to know why I am rejected even if you never say these words yourself. I want to know what it is about me that makes me unworthy of being your wife.