Unmarriageable: Pride and Prejudice in Pakistan

by Soniah Kamal

there were few fates more petrifying to a Pakistani girl than downward mobility.

What had they known about money? They’d only ever spent it.

‘Everyone,’ Lady said, ‘knows people go classic when they can’t afford brands.’

why would you want to marry someone who cares only about the make of your car or the size of your house?’ ‘How is that any different from marrying someone because they are smart or nice?’ Lady said. ‘Criteria is criteria!’

‘I’m going to the garden,’ Mr Binat said. ‘If I sit here any longer, I’ll have another heart attack.’

But most people are scared of the dead, and even more so at night-time.’ ‘If you ask me,’ Alys said, ‘it’s the living who people should be scared of.’

‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that a good girl ought to keep her mouth shut about whether she’s been keeping her legs shut.’

the best marriages were ones where the husband loved the wife more.

‘There should be a mandatory note,’ Mrs Binat mumbled to her daughters, ‘on wedding invitations, saying: “Please do not try to out-bride the bride.”’

‘Love at first sight, followed by rest of life to sit around falling in like.

‘One look is all love needs. One look.’

‘You and I will live together in our old age, on a beach, eat samosas and scones, and feast on the sunsets.

For the truth was that behind every successful Pakistani girl who fulfilled a dream stood a father who allowed her to soar instead of clipping her wings, throwing her into a cage, and passing the keys from himself to brother, husband, son, grandson, and so on.

men should avert their eyes from women, rather than women being forced to cover themselves

‘But reading widely can lead to an appreciation of the universalities across cultures.’

Speak, your mouth is unshackled,’

‘Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’

better to remain barren than birth a disobedient child.’

‘Affection and respect,’ Alys said, ‘increase exponentially once one is dead.’

It’s like they break your legs, then give you a wheelchair, then expect you to be grateful for the wheelchair for the rest of your life.

And Sherry and I were going to spend our old age together, by a seaside, eating scones and samosas, two bachelorettes bingeing on the sunset forever.’

You are unmarriageable.’

‘I like you for your brains.’ ‘I don’t like you for anything,’

‘Internal misogyny has made a mockery of female solidarity,’

It was a truth universally acknowledged, Alys suddenly thought with a smile, that people enter our lives in order to recommend reads.

We’re the sort of people who believe home is where you make it, and borders are ridiculous, and airports are the most harmonious places on earth.’

‘We may never starve,’ said Mrs Binat, hopeless at the thought of having to start over yet again, ‘but even on a full stomach one can lose the will to live. We will be forever hungry for better things.’

‘Life continues beyond happily ever after,’

They say blood is thicker than water. I say to hell with that. If blood mistreats you, better water. And if friends prove false, no matter, find better or be alone and be your own best friend.’

‘For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?’