By Malik Daniyal

We grow up in Kashmir hearing the same refrains, over and over again: “Shaadi karne ki umar ho gayi hai,” “Log kya kahenge,” “Ladki ke liye ghar ka faisla buzurg karte hain.”

At first, they blend into the background, part of the air we breathe. But as we grow older, the weight of those words becomes harder to ignore.

We see it in drawing rooms over nun chai. In hushed conversations during matchmaking visits. And later, at weddings, where the bride smiles for the camera, but not with her eyes.

She no longer knows how to say “no.” Maybe she tried. But she was told not to create a scene, not to make it harder for her parents and not to dishonor the family.

She was met with lines like, “Cxe kiya chi gomut, maelis magi hund yezatuk khayal cheena?” (“What have you become? What will people say? Don’t you care about your family’s honor?”)

All because she dared to say no, a right Islam explicitly gives her, stripped away by a culture pretending to speak in the voice of religion.

There is a troubling irony within Kashmiri society. The institution of marriage, which in faith is meant to begin with mutual respect and consent, too often begins with pressure and silent resistance.

The weight of tradition, family pride, and misrepresented religion falls heaviest on girls. Many are not married because they are ready or willing, but because saying no would upset the fragile order of things.

And this is not just a personal tragedy. It is a social failure that corrodes the very idea of family.

Islam, however, is unambiguous.

Marriage is a covenant, between two consenting adults, not families. Consent........

© Kashmir Observer