Oppression Of Women And The Veil Controversy In Afghanistan

The burqa is Rasheed’s method for advising Mariam to recall that she will never again be permitted to go outside the house without it. Mariam now feels an impression of contracting. Her husband’s will is as forcing and relentless as the mountains approaching over her previous town. Mariam has married a man who is unyielding and stern. She understands that she has turned into a spouse bound by antiquated guidelines and controls.

Tragically, Mariam, in the same way as other of the women in the middle to low classes in Afghanistan, is constrained by her husband to wear a burqa. He discloses to her that clients came into his store with their spouses dressed too provocatively and that they put their uncovered feet forward for him to measure. The type of isolation and corruption of women caused by the act of wearing burqa is not so for the privileged. Rasheed says, The women come uncovered, they talk to me directly, look me in the eye without shame. They wear makeup and skirts that show their knees. Sometimes they even put their feet in front to me, the women do, for measurements. And their husbands stand there and watch. They allow it.... They think they’re being modern men, intellectuals, on account of their education, I suppose (69).

Rasheed needs Mariam, to be his property and forces his will on her and forces her to carry on with an actual existence of inaction. He cautions her,

“There’s a teacher living down the street, Hakim is his name, and I see his wife Fariba all the time walking the streets alone with nothing on her head but a scarf. It embarrasses me, frankly, to see a man who’s lost control of his wife” (69).

To get rid of Mariam, Jalil and his spouses constrained Mariam hastily to wed Rasheed. The main essential right of her own life is accordingly grabbed from her by the mullah and the observers there including her father, who constrained her to agree and sign the marriage documents. In the wake of coming to Kabul with Rasheed consistently she fears that this will be the night when he will do what spouses do with their wives, but to her surprise she learns from Rasheed that he wants to rest alone in his very own room. Before long, one night, he visits her around evening time and begins to caress her and touch her. He lies next to her and plays the marriage game. She grits her teeth fully expecting the agony yet is completely astonished how troublesome it is. Rasheed appears not to comprehend what she is encountering and sees just to his own needs. “The pain was sudden and astonishing. Her eyes sprang open. She sucked air through her teeth and bit on the knuckle of her thumb” (76). When it was done, he rolled off her panting. As he lay there beside her, he said “There is no shame in this, Mariam... It’s what married people do” (76). Anyway when he returns to his own room, he forgets her to hold up the agony, to take a look at the solidified stars in the sky and a cloud that wraps over the essence of the moon like a wedding veil. Ironiclly, this is an assault beause Mariam even discloses to him that she wouldn’t like to do what he requests. The love-making is without wanting to and it indicates how much life has changed for her.

Hosseini needs to paint the scope of powers debasing women in Afghanistan, from the hyper valuation of male youngsters to occasions of assault inside arranged marriage. Personal connections are discoloured by different ills of society and love is frequently close to a fantasy. Rasheed weds Mariam for his very own fulfillment and to replace his drowned child by a male child. He tells Mariam amid her first pregnancy that on the off chance that she delivers a boy the name will be Zalmai and the girl child’s name she can pick herself whatever she loves. The swaddling garments he brings are intended for a male child. Hosseini paints the picture of male commanded society where young girls are abhorred and not any more viewed as beneficial.

Prior to Mariam’s first pregnancy, Rasheed takes her on excursions to various parts of Kabul and demonstrates her lovely things and offers her best nourishment and desserts. Mariam strolls close to Rasheed, stumbling every so often on the burqa’s hem. Mariam, who has never been inside an restaurant, thinks that its odd at first to lift her burqa to put morsels of food into her mouth. She endures this for her husband, for their relationship, and for their future expectation. When he takes her around Kabul, stops at a weaving shop and requests that her hold up outside the shop. While she waits for him, she watches the people going by. She sees modern women in the city of Kabul. They do not cover their faces, wear dresses that show their legs, wear make-up and style their hair. They all have swinging handbags and stirring skirts. Their nails are long, polished pink or orange, and their lips red as tulips. They stroll in high heels rapidly, just as on critical business. They wear dark sunglasses and Mariam envisions that they all have university degrees and work at their very own workplaces with all extravagances of life. She even observes a women smoking behind the wheel of a car. They beguile Mariam and make her mindful of her own lowliness, plain looks, absence of yearnings, and her obliviousness of such a significant number of things.