“Look at her eating with such ease, even with her nath on,” said one of them with utter amusement.

“That is because it is her second marriage, practice ho gae hogi ab tak tou,” remarked the other.

Both laughed, jeered a bit at the second-time bride and moved on with their lives. Little did they know about the long journey riddled with self-hate this second-time bride had to go through to finally allow herself to start living again after her disastrous first experience.

“Yar is ko dosri dafa husband mil gya hai itna acha, hamain tou aik dafa bhi nahi milta. Kuch tou game hai iski”

“Does her family really have to spend so much on the second wedding, pehli wali se dil nai bhara tha inka kia? Socho, ye bhi toot gaye tou kitna paisa zaya hoga. So weird, honestly.”

And the list of such unasked-for comments and sarcastic remarks just went on.

Unfortunately, I was an eye-witness to this seemingly trivial incident at a family friend’s wedding. It could easily have been someone at singer Annie Khalid’s wedding too. 

Annie’s response to the stigma surrounding second marriage and the divorce always being a woman’s fault has been making rounds of the social media, for the past few days.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BLTdDTYhs4p/

While the divorce rate has been increasing rather rapidly in Pakistan, our consequent response to it isn’t.

From February 2005 to January 2008, about 75, 000 divorce cases were registered with the country’s family courts. The number has been increasing ever since.  

Sadly, the story mostly remains the same. Only the subject changes and maybe even the loud mouths, too, but never the kind of things those loud mouths say, they remain the same. Second marriage for a woman is mostly attributed to her financial needs and to that of her kids if she is (un)fortunate enough to have them.

Conversely, if a divorcee is financially independent, the same people would argue as to why she needs a man anyway? Can’t she take care of herself now?  As if the basic human need for having a companion counts for nothing. They completely negate even the slightest possibility of a marriage not being always about ensuring a secure future or getting a permanent place to stay at. Love and sex; two of the basic human needs are pure taboos in this country and so is the idea of a second marriage associated with them.

The most pitiful scenarios are when the second-time brides beg you to not post their dosri shadi ki tasveerain on Facebook because they do not want to be the brunt of everyone’s jokes.

I had another friend explicitly tell me that, and when I inquired as to what exactly she is scared of, “people” was her answer. She said she just was not ready to respond to everyone’s queries about her first broken marriage, new husband and how it all came about in such a short span of time. It is not that she was a coward or did not have the courage to face the world, it is just that she was already so mentally exhausted that the idea of having to answer unending questions, posed by some (ir)relevant people disheartened her.

Amusingly, when you get divorced, your body, your right to a second marriage and even your decisions regarding yourself and your kids become public property.

People think it is completely justified to throw some friendly suggestions at you, every now and then. Now that you do not have a man by your side, they take it on themselves to guide you on how to live your life while none of these should be among the reasons women decide to re-marry, except love and an inherent need for a companion.

Lastly, I am just going to leave this note here:

Cover Image Via: blogs.jpmsonline.com