her Bano is a 17-year-old Pashtun girl from Pakistan who spent last year as an exchange student in Evanston, Illinois, as part of the Youth Exchange and Study (YES) Program. She is now back in the city of Peshawar in the northwest of Pakistan. As a guest blogger, she’ll be writing about life in Pakistan from the perspective of a teenage girl who has spent time in the West. This is her second post.
The bride and groom, along with two witnesses, must sign the contract during the Nikkah (marriage) ceremony. Sher Bano The bride and groom, along with two witnesses, must sign the contract during the Nikkah (marriage) ceremony.
My previous post gave readers a taste of Peshawar ’s culture. After reading the comments, I observed a major curiosity about the marriage system in Peshawar, especially arranged marriage. So I decided to write about this. However, please remember that no single person can ever portray a culture, neither can I.
When I was in the United States, at first I regretted telling my host sister that several of my relatives had married their first cousins, because it made her go into a partial state of shock. For those of you like me who are not aware of this: it is illegal to marry first cousins in Illinois. The thought of interacting with illegally married couples was quite disturbing at first. But then I remembered…I am not from Illinois, but Peshawar!
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