No Choice

  Shadan Jassar
  ESL 100
  10/7/2011

                                                                         No Choice

                      

                                                           

                             

For a moment I thought my family was being facetious when they told me that I would be getting married to my former neighbor in Baghdad. Arranged marriage is a type of marriage that happens based on the parents’ choice for their daughter’s groom and it was common in Iraq among Muslims. I was only seventeen years old when I was informed about my marriage while the potential groom was in his late twenties. I was in America with my family starting a new life, and he was going to move to America to marry me when I turned nineteen years old. Fortunately for me, it did not happen because I persisted and eventually my parents listened to my denial. Although my mother’s marriage was arranged to a good husband and nice father, I was against my arranged marriage because just the idea of it affected my future plans, my personality, and my health.

                                

First, my future plans would be affected by this type of marriage. When I was informed of getting married, I was in high school and I could not focus on my academic plans for the future. I did not know whether I would continue to finish my education or not. Most of the girls in my culture have to quit their academic life because they are either asked to do so by their husbands or they cannot balance between studying and running a household. I always dreamed and planned of graduating from medical school, but at that time I was not sure if my dream would come true. My family always assured me that the person whom I would get married to was a nice person who would let me pursue any degree I desire. However, my new concern was that I was not certain I would be able to be a good wife and student at the same time, especially since medical school needs a lot of time and energy, and that is hard if one is married.

                                      

In addition, my personality was affected by just the notion that I would not get to choose my future husband. The person that I had known as Shadan from when I was a little child was not able to fulfill their proposal, and I saw my personality shrinking. At first, nobody accepted my refusal because they wanted me to get married to a person whom we knew very well, knew his family, and most importantly was from my country. They wanted to keep me safe with a person from my culture and who would take care of me and my two younger sisters. They told me if I were not living in America, they would not make me get married at this young age. They would have me get married after college. As the time passed, I felt like I did not have control over my own life and that I was a puppet. I got so quiet listening to my family’s plans for me. My opinion was not valued for them. I did not have the courage to talk about what I thought anymore because they would get mad at me. I was afraid that this would make my future spouse control me, too.

                     

Furthermore, my health was beginning to be strongly affected. Because my neighbor was in Baghdad, I started thinking all the time about whether we were going to get married even if it did not matter to me at the beginning. Things changed after a few months. I started hearing that he did not want to come to America, so he wanted me to go back to Iraq, which made it easier for me to refuse him as a suitor. Nevertheless, I got so confused when I heard that. I had my new plans for my new life. I decided to finish my education no matter what and live with my husband in a small apartment. Unfortunately, I fell into a severe depression after the updates. I could not focus, I could not eat, I spent most of the time crying, and I started sleeping for longer hours. My parents helped me by taking me to a psychiatrist who prescribed a medication for me. My family felt bad about what was happening to me. Then, I decided to reject one last time because I did not want to leave America, and finally my family accepted because they wanted me to get better and they did not want me to go back to Baghdad.

                                                   

I often think of getting married to a younger man than whom my parents chose, of my choice and with my family’s acceptance after finishing my education. I was very shocked, when my family decided my destiny without taking my opinion because they are usually very open minded people. In my Iraqi culture, especially in society and religion, it is very normal that a young girl gets married to a man of her family’s choice. For some girls, an arranged marriage might be successful while for others, it might end up with divorce due to a lot of struggles. If I respect my culture and love it, why would an arranged marriage sturdily affect my forthcoming plans, my character, and also my well-being?