Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Love, InshAllah

Home
Muslim
Relationships and Religion
A Married Woman

A Married Woman

Last updated on: November 3, 2014 at 11:14 am by Posted by The Editors

A Married Woman 2014-11-03T11:14:34-07:00 Posted by The Editors

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Eds note: Welcome our newest www.patheos.com/blogs/loveinshallah columnist, Huda Al-Marashi! Keep an eye out for Huda’s column, “Things I Wish I’d Known” the second Tuesday of every month!

When I was growing up, my Iraqi-born mother responded to my requests to travel alone, consider schools out-of-state, or stay out late with friends with the same answer, “When you get married.” Once I got married, I’d be somebody else’s problem. Then, it wouldn’t be her place to tell me no. Then, it would be my husband’s job to worry about me.

Marriage, in my adolescent mind, was the only way to an independent adulthood. Western culture may have referred to marriage as settling down, but I associated it with freedom. Marriage would sanction my first relationship with a man. It would transition me from my parents’ authority to my husband’s, and I was convinced my future husband would do whatever I wanted. He was not an individual with his own goals and desires; he was the supporting actor in my life’s script.

The bridal magazines I pored over as a teenager only confirmed this notion. In every wedding dress advertisement, the groom’s sole purpose was to gaze longingly at his beautiful bride. Clearly the bride was the star of the wedding, the most important character, and this alone made marriage superior to dating. Girls with boyfriends didn’t get pearly sets of bone china, gleaming flatware, or crystal goblets; they didn’t don flowing white gowns with tiaras, slice into towering cakes, or go to exotic destinations for their honeymoon. But if I was a married woman, I could wake up next to my husband, watch him shave every day before leaving to work in a pressed suit and tie, and then according to Sheena Easton’s Morning Train, he’d come home and take me a movie, to a restaurant, slow-dancing, anything I want.

The two cultures I straddled, American and Iraqi, disagreed on so much, but they both agreed that marriage was a shiny new beginning. It was a life of matching underwear, fancy pajamas, sophisticated clothes, and smooth, hairless legs. It was beautifully set tables with fresh flowers and groceries bought at boutique markets. I didn’t see these ideas as the realization of my every when-I-grow-up image. I didn’t recognize that I was falling for advertising’s promise that consumer fulfillment led to personal transformation.

When I was twenty years old, I married the son of our closest family friends in a wedding that brought my every bridal magazine fantasy to life. But after six hours of smiling for photographs, hugging family and friends, and twirling under a grand chandelier in layers of tulle, I was no longer a bride. I was a wife in a lifelong relationship with another person, a daughter in another family. While those new ties brought with them wonderful, tender moments, I hadn’t allowed any room for the mundane in my vision of the future, and anything short of sheer fabulousness, shook me. Friday night movies at home meant my husband and I were already a boring married couple. Lazy Sunday mornings meant we never did anything fun. Quiet weekday dinners meant we’d run out of things to say to each other. Squabbles over whose parents we’d stay with and for how long meant we were too different to ever be happy together.

On visits home, I complained to my mother. “Why did you tell me I could do everything after I got married? Marriage just makes things harder.”

To this, she offered different explanations. “That’s what I was told;” “I just wanted something to tell you to keep you home and safe;” “It is one thing to let a boy go out in the world alone, but with a girl, you worry about her reputation;” “Maybe it wasn’t right, but how was I supposed to know you were listening so carefully?”

Gradually I came to see the particular, the maternal, and even the fear behind the rules that had defined my life, the rules I’d always assumed were based on my religion or at the very least, my culture. And even more gradually still, I came to understand that while I’d inherited a myriad of gender, familial, and media expectations, these ideas had only been partially to blame for my discontent. The truth was that simple refrain of “When you get married,” had cleaved my mind. It had convinced me of a great big divide, the before and after marriage.

What I wish I’d known as a twenty year old bride is that for all the externals that change with marriage, the nature of life is consistent. There is no fix to the angst of living, no person that will deliver you from the work of existence. You will feel lonely; sometimes when your spouse is sitting right next you or sleeping in the same bed. You will navigate your mind’s mental wilderness alone, and you will communicate what you found there to a partner who may or may not understand. Your underwear will get holes in them. You will wear your ratty, old pajamas, and your spouse will, too. One day you’ll understand that this is not the disappointment of married life, but it’s reward―to carry on with the business of day to day living with someone at your side.

—

Huda Al-Marashi is an Iraqi-American at work on a memoir about the impact of her dual-identity on her marriage. Excerpts from this memoir have appeared in the anthologies *Love Inshallah: The Secret Love Lives of Muslim American Women, Becoming: What Makes a Woman, In Her Place,*and Beyond Belief. Other works have recently appeared in The Rumpus Funny Women Column and the anthology Rust Belt Chic. Her poem, TV Terror, is part of a touring exhibit commemorating the Mutanabbi Street Bombing in Baghdad. She is the recipient of a 2012 Creative Workforce Fellowship, a program of the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture, made possible by the generous support of Cuyahoga County citizens through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.

Things I Wish I'd Known

American love stories

Previous Post

April 4, 2014

Friday Love - Technicolor Muslimah

Next Post

April 9, 2014 Crying and Reclamation

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Book Reviews Brown Girl Dreaming Editors Flirting with Fate and other Disasters of an Intersectional Muslimah Food, Love, & Memories Friday Love Halal Since 22 Integrity of Heart Life After Death Literary Mama Literature Love Inshallah Podcast Love InshAllah writers Media My Infidel Husband Not Without Love Poetry Monday Radical Love Reflections & Readings Reviews of Love InshAllah Salaam Love Writers Sex & The Ummah Single in the City Spotlight Story & Chai Book Club The Geekologist The Love Tour The Male Gaze Things I Wish I'd Known Thoughts of a Wasat Girl Uncategorized Your Sunny Side Up Your voices

Select a Month May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What Christian group is known for using the term "General Conference"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Presbyterians Seventh-day Adventists Lutherans Baptists