It is a truth universally acknowledged that Pakistani society holds the institution of marriage on a pedestal; it is given near holy status. The entirety of our lives revolve around the rituals of courtship, of marriage, and later still, of protecting the institution at all costs. Given the outsized importance placed on it, it would appear as though the act of getting married is one that leads to real self-actualization, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs be damned. The institution of marriage is an ideal, and when you choose to not enrol in the great program, a lot is assumed about you and a lot is said about you. Choosing to not take part is in fact not seen as merely exercising a personal choice, but is in fact viewed as morally suspect and downright irresponsible. Beyond just a celebration of those who choose to wed, the institution of marriage implicitly undermines and demonises those who do not participate in it. The widespread assumption is that I, an unmarried subhuman, would feel horribly about this personal inadequacy. That I would clamour to find myself a partner, to save myself from the ridicule and the crushing loneliness of the single life. Well, you’d be wrong. If anything, being untethered brings me joy.

No, I’m not lonely. No, I’m not unloveable. I’m just unready. I hardly know myself, I’m hardly recovering from my own traumas and mental health struggles, and given the state of the world today, I can hardly afford it too. Perhaps I am selfish, and deeply possessive of my creativity and space. Being partnered feels scary in that sense; how am I to carry my creative burden (and with it all the accompanying quirks of creativity and writing) with the expectations of being an equal member of a romantic relationship? While reading this, many of you may well be thinking:

“But beta, you should be married by now na. What will people think?” “This is all just khyaali pulao. Be serious about your life and get married. Begum hi seedha karay gi (your wife will sort you out)!”

All such comments (and others festering in your mind) point to one (of the many) things that bothers me about how we look at marriage: we use it to underpin everything in our lives. A marriage is meant to centre and anchor you, and everything you do flows from it and into it. Once married, you form a “unit” and that unit dictates the lives of everyone in it; either partner makes concessions to the other, each partner must feed into the unit depending on the traditional roles they embody. What is lost in all of this is the individual.

Image Credit: Mo Eid

Who are you in a marriage; actually better yet, who were you before it? Who and what did you have to lose for the sake of the “unit”? I realise this paints all marriages in a poor light, but most marriages do work in this way (major kudos to everyone who makes the “unit” work for them in a way where no one loses themselves!). A lot of our cultural upbringing makes it appear as though life in deference to the “unit” is the only way to live. While the family unit is a useful and culturally important phenomenon, living in the traditional “unit” only out of compulsion and deference is not a healthy way to live.

For over a decade now, global marriage rates have been declining. This phenomenon isn’t just limited to the West. Interestingly, studies have shown that if looked at by socio-economic class, people traditionally considered “middle to upper middle class” have seen the largest drops in marriage rate worldwide. This is noted as a surprising insight given that historically it has been the middle class that has participated the most in the institution of marriage, and have maintained and promoted the family unit underpinned by marriage.

Why is that younger people are choosing to not marry, or to marry much later in life, and what are they foregoing marriage for? Studies conducted in South Korea, Greece, the USA, and broadly North Africa all point to a similar desire; giving time and space for one’s self. Newer generations have grown up seeing marriage and the family unit become an avenue through which their parents sacrificed so much of themselves to provide, often time giving up who they were, or what they wanted to do. This isn’t to say that older generations are being demonised for this choice, but rather that younger generations understand that while previously, there was no other way, they now want to carve out this new alternative for themselves, and see where it leads them. Additionally, the people surveyed said that they want to also give time and respect to their existing relationships: parents, siblings, and friends. They are prioritising giving their heart and energy to themselves and those close to them first, with the hope that by doing so they may be in a better place to bring someone into their life as their equal. Within these studies, it was found that the desire to be non-monogamous ranked pretty low; people want to connect with themselves first and foremost.

While all of these international and sociological aspects might be at play, at home, the perception of what it means to be unmarried feels stuck. Often, being unmarried is not seen as merely an unwise choice, but it also elicits suspicion on your personal moral code. Just this year, at a friend’s house, upon learning that I’m still unmarried, a friend’s mother and khala laughed as they coined a new tagline for my existence; “kanwara aur aawaragard” (unattached and wild). I laughed and looked down at my serving of three-milk cake. How could I have known that my insatiable sweet tooth would bring me to the door of ridicule? Beyond just the constant questioning of the “choice” to be single, the entire system moves around you to get you to understand that “shaadi karni hai!”. A friend shared recently how a relative of theirs, who happens to live all the way in Los Angeles, has been pestering others in Pakistan to convince her niece to just get married. We laughed at the absurdity of the image, and wondered how the question is never “Why are you single?”, but rather “When will you stop being single?”, and even if the question of why is asked, it is done so mockingly and without any intention of actually understanding why.

Stepping out into the world being unmarried is a time-bound test: how quickly will your actions be questioned? And how soon will you be asked about your life, with regards to the institution of marriage?

Choosing to be unmarried, or taking your time with that decision, isn’t the full frontal assault on the institution that people make it out to be. Like the research showed, it has more to do with prioritising work that you do internally, on your mental health, on nurturing relationships with others, and the pursuit of your passions. However, this individualism doesn’t sit well with the way our culture is structured. There’s an established understanding that the West focuses on individualism and the East focuses on community and family; it is almost a trope given how much it is used to East meets West rom-coms, but it is a useful lens to look at the perception of the impossibility of singlehood and happiness that is pervasive in our society. Prioritising oneself fundamentally goes against what our collectivist culture teaches us. Why, then, does this still continue to occur?

Our World in Data

There is a lot that is right about living in a collectivist society. However, the way in which collectivism and “unit” based living is practised may explain why newer generations might want some “me” time. The “unit” is enforced at a young age, and often you are taught to sacrifice yourself and your needs for the sake of the unit; it can be something as small as leaving the chicken leg piece for your older brother, or not speaking up when an elder might say something rude to you. These seem like small acts, but pile them up on a daily basis and you’ll see that by the time you’re an adult, you’ve sacrificed so much of yourself and so much of your voice that you might need to reconnect with the self first. The problem isn’t the clash between collectivism and individualism, the problem is in how collectivism has played out in front of younger generations. This isn’t to say that collectivism is inherently evil, but it is to say that maybe collectivism itself needs a reboot so that the price of being in the “unit” isn’t so high that people start to lose themselves.

To be single or unmarried is to be alone, and the Urdu word for that is akela. The problem is that akela can only be understood as lonely. However, of course, to be alone is not always to be lonely. Theologian Paul Tillich explains the distinction: “Loneliness expresses the pain of being alone, but solitude expresses the glory of being alone.” Being on your own is not always a painful process; it is not always an experience fraught with anguish and hurt. I think because Urdu uses the same word, at least in everyday parlance, we culturally use the terms interchangeably. It also fits in with the societal understanding of how we imagine someone who exists outside of the “unit”; they are literally alone (akela), and therefore must be emotionally and mentally lonely (akela).

I recently read - and devoured - Dolly Alderton’s novel ‘Good Material’. In the closing few pages of the novel, a married character speaks to one of the heartbroken leads about being alone. When I read this particular line of dialogue, I had to put the book down. “Be alone, Jen. You know how to be alone without being lonely. Do you know how rare that is? Do you know how much I wish I could do that? It’s a wonderful thing you’ve got going on there.” While this dialogue, inadvertently, points to the question of marriage as an institution to avoid loneliness, it mainly highlights the special-ness of being comfortable enough with yourself and in your skin to a point where being with yourself doesn’t ever feel lonely. The character that speaks this dialogue might fantasise about this quality, others will definitely not, but for me it speaks to the essential experience of wanting to know and love one’s self, an idea gaining increased traction in the world today . Some people find that comfort and joy in marriage, and others find it in exploration and in spending time away, spending time alone. There’s no right way to find one’s self. Perhaps it is time we stop convincing ourselves that there is only one way to do so.