The Reasonably Prudent Law Student

So my friend Maryam got married this weekend (her younger sister, Sarah, also got married this weekend!). I was at their mehndi, and at Maryam’s wedding (couldn’t stay for Sarah’s), and it was just lovely. Both girls are lovely inside and out, and they looked fabulous, and it was just a really nice wedding. God bless their marriages and keep them happy, ameen.

(I have pictures of them, but I don’t think they’d want me to post them, much less on my blog, not even my protected FB account, so I won’t. But trust me, they looked GORGEOUS.)

At Maryam’s wedding, there weren’t many other people I knew, so I sat with my mom and her teacher friends from her old school, the one I refer to as the shithole Islamic school. You guys know what I’m talking about. I didn’t mind. I wasn’t an active participant in the conversation, but I didn’t mind sitting there and listening along and being slightly bored. No big deal.

When I was younger, my parents often took me to dinner parties where there weren’t any other kids for me to play with. I learned long ago how boredom wasn’t a bad thing, and how to enjoy my own company, which I do, very much, to this day. I learned how to keep myself amused for hours with one sheet of paper and a pen, if the hosts were nice enough to think of me and give me that, and how to sit quietly next to my parents (as a four year old!) for hours while they drank tea and talked. It wasn’t a big deal.

Which is why I hate the kids these days, constantly demanding to be entertained. >:( Little turds.

So I’m sitting at this wedding with the aunties and Maryam is led in by her siblings and everyone looks awesome and she joins the groom on the stage and stands for some official wedding pictures and all that.

And I know Maryam. I know she can be a little shy, although if you know her, she’s hilarious and sarcastic and interesting and awesome. But if you don’t know her, you’d think she was just kind of quiet and shy and introverted.

And I know that she, like almost all brides, was probably more than a little nervous, more than a little stressed, more than a little tired. And she’s also a little shy, sometimes. When she was standing for the pics, she had her chin tipped down, her gaze lowered, which is very traditional.

Back in the day, brides often had veils over their faces for the entire wedding celebration. You guys saw pictures from my mom and dad’s wedding (if you haven’t, they’re all up and captioned at my TwitPic page), where my mom had a veil over her face for the nikkah (the actual signing of the papers, reading of the vows and the prayers, the actual marriage). Even in the normal wedding photos, she has her gaze lowered. I think there are just a couple pictures, if any, really, where she’s looking at the camera.

(These pictures are of my parents.)

Maryam wasn’t really talking to anyone when she was up on the stage, and her head was mostly lowered, although she did look up for some of the pictures and smile and all that. She wasn’t really talking to her friends or the groom, and this is pretty traditional.

Traditionally, the bride doesn’t smile, doesn’t talk to her friends, doesn’t talk to the grooms, doesn’t do anything but keep her head down.

And Jesus shit, you guys, the comments from the peanut gallery at my table.

One auntie that I’ve known forever was like, “Oh, this is how brides should be! Brides that keep their gaze down the whole time, they just look so much better, so much more pious! [She used the word 'noor' when describing how she looked, which literally means a light emanating from the face, but more generally refers to a light that seems to emanate from a person due to that person's goodness and piety, etc.]”

She continued, “This is how brides should absolutely be. They shouldn’t be talking to anyone, they shouldn’t be smiling. I hate it when I go to weddings and the brides are looking up, looking around, smiling at their friends, smiling for the photos, talking to the groom. Gah, you have the REST OF YOUR LIFE to talk and smile! For God’s sake, at least sit still for this, your wedding day!”

Seriously. That is EXACTLY what was said.

WHAT THE HELL KIND OF BULLSHIT IS THIS.

I almost vomited. I almost vomited right there. It took everything in me not to tell this auntie to shove it, and that she was full of shit.

It was the most disgusting, misogynistic thing I’d heard all week, easily. Possibly all month. So fucking disgusting.

Brides should stay quiet? Look down? Not smile? I should mention, NO such conduct is expected from grooms. If a groom laughs with his friends and smiles for the photos, everyone’s like, aww, look, he’s so happy, what a great guy, what a great marriage. If a girl does it, she’s too free, too loose, too uppity.

Insisting that a bride look down and keep her mouth shut and not even dare to fucking smile on her WEDDING DAY is nothing but a blatant, gross desire to silence a woman.

Think about it this way: She is not even entitled to her own emotions.

These same ridiculous aunties are going to sit around at my wedding, eating the food I paid for them to have for dinner that night, sitting at tables I paid for, and paid to decorate, and they’re going to talk about how I look ‘too free, too loose” (translation, since it’s a little idiomatic: whorish) because I’m daring to smile for the camera and talk to my friends. And if I dare to smile and grin at my husband?

Dear LORD, that is the worst goddamn thing I can ever do. It means I’m a whore. Seriously. Grinning at my husband, forget even holding his hand (OMG WTF SKANK), on my wedding day is enough for some people to think I’m acting whorishly and totally inappropriately.

They’re in for a terrible surprise.

Because I can guarantee, (and this is not out of spite in reaction to this incident but how I’ve always felt) if I ever get married, the day I do, my shoulders will be down and back, my head will be held high, I will be smiling, and my eyes will meet the camera each time.

I will talk and joke with my friends. I will tease my groom. I will thank my guests for coming. I will grin at the camera in picture after picture with friends and family and acquaintances that somehow managed to come along.

To any young women reading this, the imminent-brides, if you want to go the more traditional route and keep your head down and not look at the camera, that is FINE. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. If that is what you want to do, that’s awesome and totally cool and I will probably be sitting there, looking at your pics, thinking you make a gorgeous, traditional bride.

But that is not to say that’s how all brides SHOULD be.

To the other imminent-brides that are not comfortable with that, don’t stand for it. Look at the camera. Smile. Talk to your friends. Flash your husband a big ol’ smile.

You have the rest of your life to smile and talk and touch your husband, true. So why not start doing all that on the day you actually get married?

I’d like to end by once again congratulating Maryam and Sarah. You are both lovely and your wedding was awesome. Also, please don’t interpret this as even slightly critical of you. It’s critical of how people judge brides, and how people have horrible, offensive expectations of women, and are so quick to brand them as being too loose, for something as simple as a smile. Every bride should be able to behave the way she wants on her wedding day without being subject to this kind of disgusting criticism rooted in our patriarchy-obsessed culture.

<3