A Crime

In A Thousand Splendid Suns it is clear women from lower classes are not given rights in Afghanistan. The fact that Mariam's mother is banished from the city after she becomes pregnant with Mariam reminds me of The Scarlet Letter. The most heart wrenching part of the book so far is Jalil's inability to stand up for his daughter when his wives want to give her away, and Mariam pleading with him not to make her do it. The issue in Afganistan which I understand is part of that culture is that young girls the age of Mariam are given away by their fathers to men three times their age. That part of the book was terrible, for girls my age and younger to have to leave their homes and become a wife and give themselves to a stranger is sickening. In my past blog posts I have commented on other cultural differences and I have understood that some cultures are different and that is how they live but in the book Mariam did not want to get married, they forced her. The strangest thing is my mother was telling my sister and me that when she was younger before she met my dad and lived with her cousin in Miami she was proposed to by a guy that had the same culture in A Thousand Splendid Suns and she said she would have never accepted but if she had and would have still had me hypothetically speaking I would be apart of that culture too. If I had been apart of that culture I do not think I would have been okay with an arranged marriage but that would have been my life. If my dad right now tried to get me to marry some old man I would run away from home and never come back. The saddest part is since Mariam had a difficult upbringing even though she did not want to be with Rasheed, her husband she ends up trying to make him happy and then he beats her. I think the fact that these girls don't have the right to deny this from happening is a crime and I hope by the end of the book Mariam is freed and able to live the rest of her life happy.