Some modern Pakistani women and men sometimes think about divorce, despite the culturally negative attitudes toward divorce. Traditional Pakistani family relationships and marriages have been endogamous for centuries. How does it look in Pakistan?

The boys’ and girls’ marriages were all arranged by their parents or other family elders. They found a suitable mate for their adult child, planned their wedding, and wished them well. That’s why these methods of family arrangement are dubbed “arranged marriages.”

These days, marriage is still a family matter in Pakistan. Parents and other elderly people feel responsible for their children’s future. Therefore, they are used to being active in their future marriage arrangements. Arranged marriages are still common despite their modern transformation.

The Pakistani Traditional Culture of Marriage

These marriage traditions have been related to the Pakistani communal and cooperative cultures of the past. Familial bonds are the basic means of community life. In Pakistan, the extended family is valued more than the nuclear family.

The extended family system is interwoven and intertwined. In many cases, spousal ties are weaker than other family obligations. Marital love and happiness are of lower importance. Parents are heavily involved in their children’s new families since they planned and organized their marriages. They perceive their son’s or daughter’s families as part of their large extended family. They can even intervene in situations when their son or daughter no longer wishes to remain married.

All these social and economic factors of Pakistani traditional life influence people’s cultural attitudes toward the idea of divorce. This is why Pakistani women and men rarely think about divorce.

These cultural factors also affect what men and women think and feel when, in the case of turbulent marital relationships, they try to contemplate the possibility of divorce. Let us consider the challenges that women and men encounter in such circumstances.

The Economic Challenges of Divorce for Pakistani Women

For women, for example, economic reasons have been the main reason for staying with their husbands. Who would support them if they left? Therefore, women are told to compromise on any issues in their relationship with their husbands for the sake of their security and subsistence. A woman would not have the resources to support herself once she was divorced:

“Divorce is a “nightmare” for her, affecting her financially, socially, and psychologically”

(Qamar & Faizan, 2021, p. 352).

“Her decision to stay in the marriage made it possible for her to practice choices regarding her employment and public mobility as well as decisions regarding her”

(Khurshid, 2020, p. 103)

Parental Families Are Unwelcoming for Divorced Women

A common perception of Pakistani marriages as stable can be deceptive and misleading. Such marriage “stability” can conceal the hidden problems of family relationships, making them invisible to outsiders. In traditional Pakistani culture, the return of married adult children to their different family homes is frequently frowned upon by their parents. Many parents never open their doors to their divorced children when they return home (Ahmed, 2021).

Therefore, rather than returning to their parental home and being confined to the rules of their house, women find more freedom in remaining in their marriage. They remain in marriages even though they are unhappy.

Here is an example of how a woman in the interview stated her reason to stay:

“She realised that returning to her parents’ home would invite ridicule and blaming from the community members and even from some members of her own family. She would not be seen as a ‘wise’ woman for leaving a man who did not have any extreme flaws”

(Khurshid, 2020, p.103)

Many women act wisely in marriage relationships. Instead of wasting time and ruminating on their unhappiness, they find satisfaction and settle into other things. Many of them find contentment in their children and relationships with other women in their extended family (Ahmed, 2021).

Challenges of Divorce for Pakistani Men

While it is more stigmatized among women, it is not deemed acceptable for men either. Pakistani men are also under pressure to keep their promises and stay in the marriages that have been arranged for them, including love marriages.

A Promise of Cultural Change: What do modern men and women think about divorce?

Thus, we can see that divorce is a difficult topic to discuss and even contemplate, both for women and men. The main reason is that in traditional Pakistani Islamic society, people have a negative mindset about divorce. Even talking about the possibility of divorce in their extended families is usually forbidden.

Pakistani culture, however, has evolved in recent years. Divorce is no longer regarded as a taboo subject. Over the last few decades, cultural attitudes have altered in many traditional societies around the world, including Pakistan. All this gives a promise of possible changes.