IJELLH Volume 7, Issue 1, January 2019 99

Harisree H G

Research Scholar,

All Saints’ College,

Thiruvananthapuram, Tamilnadu, India.

harisreehg@gmail.com

Women Victims Of The Code: A Study of Bapsi Sidhwa’s

The Pakistani Bride

Abstract: Women belonging to different times and cultural spaces are destined to live within

a patriarchal framework of values. The power that patriarchy confers on women transcends

time, geographical space and cultural bodies. From time immemorial, women in Pakistan

have been battling exploitative treatment at the hands of their male counterparts making it

difficult for them to progress and fight for rights. Pakistan born Bapsi Sidhwa, who later

moved to US, is considered as pioneer of Pakistani writing in English. The Pakistani Bride is

Sidhwa’s most outspokenly feminist work. In this novel, Sidhwa presents the plight of a

Pakistani woman, Zaitoon which brings into focus the violence, degradation and oppression

faced by women in Pakistani society.

Keywords: Women, patriarchy, oppression, feminism, female body

Walby has defined patriarchy “as a system of social structures and practices in which

men dominate, oppress and exploit women” (20). The power that patriarchy confers on men

transcends time, geographical space and cultural bodies. From time immemorial, women in

Pakistan have been battling exploitative treatment at the hands of their male counterparts

making it difficult for them to progress and fight for rights. Women are sacrificed daily to

male greed, lust, hatred, rivalry and notions of honour. It is hardily ever seen as a sacrifice,
IJELLH Volume 7, Issue 1, January 2019 100

even more rarily as a crime. When reported as a sensational crime by the media, it does not

seek justice and is soon forgotten. Honour killings are alarmingly on the rise. After the crime

has been perpetrated, the distorted notion of forgiveness comes into play to establish a

statusquo that had been threatened by female rebellion.

The feminist movement of the 20th century that metamorphosed the attitude and

perception of the world, provided a better understanding of women’s issues and rights and

endeavoured to bring them forward. All feminist pursuits are aimed at social movement

acquiring rights for women. Keeping this under consideration, one might argue that feminism

in Pakistan is a complete myth. Ever since its independence, women in Pakistan have been

battling exploitative treatment at the hands of their male counterparts making it difficult for

them to progress and fight for rights.

Pakistan born Bapsi Sidhwa, who later moved to US, is considered as pioneer of

Pakistani writing in English. She belongs to the Parsi ethnic community which practises the

Zorastrian religion. She gives voice to her feminist ideologies through her fiction. Although

the socio political concerns like partition theme occupies much of her attention, she is not

insensitive and blind to the women’s question. Alongside the partition theme, she vividly

depicts the traumatic and blurred picture of women obliterated at the altar of social

institutions. One sees in her women characters the strength of passion, the tenderness of love

and the courage of one’s convictions. They struggle to overcome the bruises of time and

escape the grip of a fate in whose hands they are often mere puppets.

The Pakistani Bride is Sidhwa’s most outspokenly feminist work. The novel engages

with the themes of marriage, honour, partition and the position of women in Asian

subcontinent. The novel can in many ways be said to be related to the tradition of 19th century

American woman’s fiction. These early feminist models are less focused on how women

should try to emancipate themselves and more concerned with making readers aware of the
IJELLH Volume 7, Issue 1, January 2019 101

nature of the oppression of women by men. The main focus of these novels is, however, to

show how the heroine manages to carve out a good life for herself “within” the existing

framework of gender and social relations.

The Pakistani Bride has several plots and especially in the beginning, it can seem

quite fragmented. The novel can be roughly divided into four parts. The first part describes

the Kohistani tribal Qasim’s marriage, the death of his family and the accidental way in

which he ends up adopting the Punjabi girl Zaitoon, who has lost her family during the

violence of the Partition of British India into India and Pakistan. The next part deals with

Zaitoon’s childhood as she takes over the place as the protagonist of the novel. The third part

tells the story of Zaitoon’s marriage to the tribal Sakhi. A secondary protagonist is

introduced, the American woman Carol who is travelling around the country with her

Pakistani husband. In the fourth and last part of the novel, Zaitoon runs way from her violent

husband, who chases her through the mountains and in the end, she is saved.

At the very outset of the novel, the reader comes across a conversation between

Qasim and his father wherein the reader gets an impression that woman is treated as a

commodity of transaction. Afshan is given to Qasim in marriage in exchange of the loan due

on her father. Marriage becomes a transaction of body rather than relationship based on

mutual understanding. By presenting three married couples, Afshan and Qasim, Zaitoon and

Sakhi and Carol and Farukh before the readers, Sidhwa interrogates the institution of

marriage. When Afshan is married to Qasim, the son of Arbab, it is not she who accepts him

verbally rather an old aunt : “Thrice she was asked if she would accept Qasim......as her

husband and thrice an old aunt murmured ‘Yes’ on her behalf” (8). Similarly when Zaitoon

turns ten, Miriam is of the opinion that “she’ll be safe only at her mother-in-law’s.....A girl is

never young to marry” (53). These words from a woman’s mouth shows that she has been

brought up and her ideology is conditioned in a male chauvinistic society where anything that
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sanctions some freedom of choice to women is seen as an aberration and a deviation from the

norm. The age old role of woman as a child bearing machine is seen as the most important

role and the questions of her education as secondary rather of least importance : “what will

she do with more reading and writing– boil and drink it?... No Allah willing, she’ll get

married and have children” (52).

Qasim offers his daughter to one of his tribes men in marriage simply because he has

given his word and when Miriam tries to make him understand that Zaitoon can’t acclimatize

herself to the tribal cultures and code, Qasim grows furious and asserts his proprietorial rights

by saying “she is my daughter and I have given my word! the word of a Kohistani” (94).

Zaitoon becomes a scapegoat of not only the proprietorial and authoritative attitude of her

father but also a victim of her own submissiveness and innocence. However she can be

exonerated of this tragic flow simply because she has been brought up and conditioned in an

atmosphere wherein rebellion against the authoritative, anarchic and despotic patriarchal set

up is seen as a war against divinity. The ideology of submissiveness has been infused in her

to such an extent that she views herself only as a commodity of male gratification and honour

for tribal man. In order to achieve emancipation, she must start a rebellion against the tribal

code of conduct in which she is caught up.

The view of men and women in this society is essentialist or represents what Toril

Moi names ‘pervasive sex’ (11). Men are seen as inherently filled with qualities that the

culture sees as male and women are similarly filled with female qualities. The possibilities

for women to enter the world of men and for men to enter women’s premises, thus become

almost non- existent, as a man for example changes his child’s diapers will be considered an

‘unnatural’ man and a woman who becomes a builder will be seen as ‘unnatural’ woman. The

society of this novel has, in this way, almost eliminated the concept of gender in favour of

pervasive sex. Felski describes this distinctive pattern of gender estrangement as follows:
IJELLH Volume 7, Issue 1, January 2019 103

The nature of female social roles is often exemplified in the emblematic figure of the

house wife whose entire horizon is circumscribed by the daily drudgery of catering to

her family’s domestic and emotional needs. The sexual division of labour ensures the

asymmetry of power in male-female relations. Women’s confinement to the familial

circle denies them the potential for autonomous self-fulfilling activity by trapping

them into a relationship of a psychological or economical dependence upon a lover

who is unable to validate women other than in relation to his own emotional and

sexual interests (129).

Sidhwa presents the plight of a Pakistani woman through the eyes of an outsider. She

exposed two brides, Carol and Zaitoon, but both with the same fate. Both are exploited by

men and sufferers of domestic and sexual violence in their own ways. Zaitoon “unlocked a

mystery affording a telepathic peephole through which Carol had a glimpse of her condition

and the fateful condition of girls like her” (84). Woman is shown as a territory to be

conquered by men. The relationship becomes one of colonizer – colonized type where in the

colonizer as if on imperial offensive tries to possess and extend his powers so as to use and

abuse this occupied territory. A scene from the brothel streets of Hira Mandi where a woman

covered by men is mocked at by the spectators serves as ample evidence of this sado-

masochistic attitude of men: “Now and again, a man standing with her in the enclosure

shouted Naach Pagli! Dance, madwoman – and jabbed her with a cane” (65). The idea of

woman as a conquered land finds expression in this novel, not only in the institution of

marriage but in every walk of Zaitoon’s life. She is treated as a salable entity and a

commodity of gratifying her husband’s animal instinct and fulfilling her father’s whims no

matter at what cost. On the very first day of her marriage, she undergoes an experience of sex

exploitation. When Qasim leaves the village, Zaitoon expresses a kind of shock. She cries

and requests him to take her with him. It is because “she had guaged the savage subjugating
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will of the man she was married to. His uneasiness and his efforts to calm her were a

desperate comfort” (169).

Sakhi is a man who believes in power politics. He knows no language of love and

sympathy. He believes that it is only through violence and suppression that Zaitoon can be

made a domesticated pet. He inflicts pain on Zaitoon- physically, psychologically and

sexually. He struck her on her thighs, on her head and shouting, “You are my woman! I’ll

teach you to obey me!” Sakhi is blind to the feminine feelings. When Zaitoon waves her hand

on a far off vehicle, Sakhi drags her along the crag and inflicts hatred on her face: “you dirty,

black little bitch, waving at those pigs......you wanted him to stop and fuck you, didn’t you?”

(185). Unable to bear the physical as well as psychological torture, Zaitoon decides to flee

this concentration camp. After she escapes for emancipation rather survival, she suffers a lot.

We see how Sakhi and his clansmen hunt for her as she has broken the tribal, barbaric and

authoritative code of conduct. She is also raped by a couple of beasts from Cheerkul.

Zaitoon’s struggle for emancipation from the patriarchal oppression come to an end when

Mushtaq finds her half-dead and half-alive and takes her to his camp. He persuades Sakhi and

his clansmen that Zaitoon is dead.

In the novel, the female body is focused on through the exploration of marriage,

gender segregation, violence and sexuality. In the arrangement of the marriage, it is not the

bride who decides and it is normally not the groom either. It is the older men of the family

who are in control and they will normally decide upon a match that benefits themselves and

their own families socially, politically or economically. “The female body is controlled by

patriarchal morality and by the roles of wifehood and motherhood” (Jain 119). The giving of

women builds alliances between men and consequently it builds kinship.

The femininity of the area is a display and behind the illusion, the street is still as

masculine as any street in Lahore. The men control the women’s lives and movements like
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men do in other parts of the city, but the manifestation of the control is different. Instead of

keeping the women inside to hide their bodies from other men, the pimps use the girls’ bodies

to earn money for themselves. Instead of hiding their property, they display it for all to see.

The difference between a girl in purdah and a dancing girl might be many, but they do have

something in common. Nether of them has the power to decide what is going to happen to

their own bodies and they are both economically dependent on men. It is not only the grown-

up female bodies that are involved in the care and procreation of children. Also little girls’

bodies are carrying babies in different ways. When Zaitoon plays with the daughters in the

Mullah house, little girls are ‘burdened with even younger children on their hips’ (57). More

gravely, later in the novel, there is mention of a ten year old girl who is pregnant. The

mention of incest and paedophilia puts an even stronger focus on the sexual abuse of women

and makes the reader more shocked than if the narrator had commented upon it.

The Pakistani Bride moves from male power to female challenge of male power and

back to male power again. It moves from the male perspective to the female and ends with

the male. The first half of the novel is dominated by the male perspective on the female body,

with the focus on the giving away or purchase of brides and above all with the men’s attitude

to and use of prostitutes. Then the perspective slowly changes to a female one, where the

women’s secrets are revealed. Puberty, women’s hopes and dreams and women’s experience

of their own sexuality are all issues that are explored. This is an attempt from the women to

challenge the male dominance and take control of their own bodies from within. Zaitoon’s

strength enduring Sakhi’s beatings and her independence when she runs away, give hope that

women will be able to stand up for themselves and change the situation.

The Pakistani Bride takes a rather pessimistic view of the future of women’s rights in

Pakistan and does not make suggestions for what women can do to improve their lives; the

protagonists are still negotiating their ways within the patriarchal structures as the novel
IJELLH Volume 7, Issue 1, January 2019 106

comes to an end. The emphasis in the novel is put on female community. Love and friendship

between women is central to than the relationships between men and women. The narrator

and characters in The Pakistani Bride repeatedly appeal to the sisterhood between women and

advocate that women have to stand up for each other and reach out across borders. It is the

theme of violence inflicted upon women’s body by the sado-masochistic, despotic and

proprietorial attitude of men that becomes the focus of attention and epicentre of gravity. The

ending of The Pakistani Bride does, however, represent a break with the early feminist

tradition as the novel does not end with a good marriage, but with the resolve to get a divorce

for the secondary protagonist Carol and a question mark concerning the protagonist Zaitoon’s

future.

The ending, however, brings a quick stop to the wave of female experience and

strength that has risen through the second part of the novel. The women’s rebellion is stifled

and the men assume control with the rape, the killing of the tribal girl and Mushtaq taking

control of the situation. The women are silenced and the men take charge of the planning of

the women’s further lives. Zaitoon will live, but what kind of life she will live is highly

uncertain. Carol has decided to go back to the United States, but Farukh gets the last word

when she says that she might change her mind when they get back to Lahore. Despite

Zaitoon’s rebellion and Carol’s realisation concerning her husband’s culture, there is no real

change in the women’s lives by the end of the novel. The women start as dependent on male

and end in the power of men. Male dominance is perpetuated and the rebelling women’s wills

are defeated and their bodies and pride are broken.

The Pakistani Bride’s challenges to patriarchy are based on resistance rather than

radical action. Afzal-Khan puts it like this: “The Pakistani Bride challenges the patriarchal

culture and values of India-Pakistani society, for the heroine Zaitoon refuses to submit to the

system and to accept the status quo” (272). The fact that Zaitoon does run away is one of
IJELLH Volume 7, Issue 1, January 2019 107

these resistances. Most women would have resigned to their fate. If they tried to run away,

they would most likely have been caught and killed. But Zaitoon makes the life-altering

decision to change the course of her life and she makes it across the mountains without

getting caught. The other challenge to male dominance is the role that female sexuality is

given in the novel. The focus on women’s bodies as experienced by women themselves is

fresh and radical in a Pakistani novel. The portrayal of Zaitoon’s puberty, her experience of

sex and her pride and love for her own body is unique in Pakistani literature, perhaps also in

South Asian literature as a whole. The most important thing about this focus on female

sexuality is the fact that it is a private experience that cannot be taken away from her by

anyone.

The Pakistani Bride is, in many ways, a naturalist and determinist work. It describes

the oppression of women as ‘an immutable law of nature’ and shows male society reassuming

control at the end of the novel. Sidhwa describes what she sees. She does not make an ending

that she knows would be impossible. Zaitoon making a new life all on her own, and marrying

for love would be a nice vision but impossible with in her culture. Her novel must be seen as

a wake up call rather than a feminist manifesto. Sidhwa does not come up with any radical

ideas concerning how women are supposed to gain equal rights in Pakistan. This can be seen

as a major feminist problem, but The Pakistani Bride must be seen in its geographical and

historical context, which to a large degree explains the apathy and bleakness of the ending.

Nevertheless, there is hope in The Pakistani Bride. Through Carol, Sidhwa advocates a

female community that stands together to support each other. Through Zaitoon’s actions, she

shows that women can resist patriarchal control through the representation of female

sexuality and opens the door to a topic almost untreated in her national literature, a topic

which gives female sexuality a life of its own. Lastly through the novel as whole, she seeks to

wake people up to the importance of women’s rights in the country.

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Works Cited

Felski, Rita. Beyond Feminist Aesthetics, Feminist Literature and Social Change. Harvard

UP, 1989.

Jain, Jasbir. Writing Women across Cultures. Rawat, 2003.

Khan, Fawzia Afzal. “Women in History”. International Literature in English: Essays on the

Major English Writers, ed. Robert L Ross. Garland, 1991. 272-280.

Loomba, Ania and Lukose, Ritty. South Asian Feminisms. Duke UP, 2012.

Manusmriti : Manav Dharma Shastra. Trans. and Ed. Graves Chamnen Haughotall, Volume

III Set. V. COSMO, 1982.

Moi, Toril. Sex, Gender and the Body: The Student Edition of What is a Woman Oxford UP,

2005.

Mumtaz, Khawal and Shaheed, Faride. Women of Pakistan: Two Steps Forward, One Step

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Sahai, Dipika, “Cultural –Consciousness and Gender Bias in Bapsi Sidhwa’s The Pakistani

Bride: A Post Colonial Approach”. Contemporary Common Wealth Literature. Ed. R.

K. Dhawan. Prestige, 2006. 79-86.

Sidhwa, Bapsi. The Pakistani Bride. Penguin, 1990.

Verma, Roop Rekha. “Femininity, Equality and Personhood”. Women, Culture and

Development. Ed. Martha Nursbaum and Jonathan Glover. Clarendon UP, 1995. 433

– 443.

Walby, Sylvia. Theorizing Patriarchy. Oxford UP, 1990.