Written by Raj Kapoor
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini is an enlightening novel that encompasses the fraught events of Afghanistan’s last thirty years, offering realistic, fictional accounts of what it is like to be a woman at the time. Themes of violence, family, hate, hope, and fear are expressed through two generations of intimate characters, brought together by their struggles to survive, sustain happiness, pursue love, and raise a family within a war scene. Two women, Mariam and Laila, work together to face a world in which women are viewed as second class citizens. Through Mariam and Laila’s lives, Hosseini showcases the roles of these women in society, their marriage customs, and the husband-wife dynamic for child marriages, all within the historical period of Afghanistan.
The novel is set in Afghanistan from the 1960s to the early 2000s and follows Mariam through her childhood. Because she is born an illegitimate baby, a harami, her father and his three wives refuse to let her share their glamorous lifestyle. Instead, Mariam’s outcast of a mother, Nana, takes on the responsibility of caring for her on the outskirts of Herat. Despite her mother’s countless spiteful remarks, as a child, Mariam does not realize that the illegitimacy of her birth taints her social class; she blindly believes that her father’s occasional love is unconditional. However, a trip to her father’s house amounts to the realization that her father is nothing if not ashamed of her, constituting pity as love. When Mariam returns home, fruitless from her endeavor, she finds that her mother committed suicide. With nowhere to go, Mariam (at age 15) is married off by her half family to Rasheed, a 45-year-old shoemaker in Kabul. At first, Rasheed is kind to her, as he hopes to replace the family he lost long ago, but when he realizes Mariam is infertile, he resorts to physical and mental abuse. Parallelly, a little girl named Laila grows up with loving parents and her childhood sweetheart named Tariq next door. The war between Afghanistan and the Soviets robs Laila’s family of her two brothers, and once the war reaches Kabul, bombs are dropped onto the city regularly. Tariq’s family flees to Pakistan, but Laila’s family is caught by a bomb before they can leave, effectively making her an orphan. Rasheed finds Laila injured and distraught by the bombs, and nurses her back to health with Mariam. Infatuated, Rasheed hires a stranger to deliver the fake news of Tariq’s death, so that Laila will not leave. When Laila hears this news and realizes that she is pregnant with Tariq’s child, she decides to stay and accept Rasheed’s marriage proposal. At first, Rasheed treats Laila with intense praise and respect, and Mariam resents her for this. However, once Laila births Aziza rather than a son, Rasheed quickly loses interest and begins to mentally and physically torment Laila just as he does Mariam. Together, the women bond, and even attempt to run away. After this failed attempt, a newborn son named Zalmai, and years of abuse, Tariq shows up. Laila and Tariq still love each other, even after all these years, and when Rasheed finds out that Tariq was in his house, he beats Laila with the intent of ending her life. Before he succeeds, Mariam grabs a shovel and kills her husband. In order to give Laila a peaceful life with Tariq and her children, Mariam carries the blame and willingly accepts the death penalty. Laila marries Tariq in Pakistan and lives a happy life with her family; following the US invasion of Afghanistan, they visit Herat to come to terms with Mariam’s death and return to the improved Kabul to lead a better life.
In the early 1960s, during the time period in Afghanistan in which Mariam grew up, women are often dealt with the lower hand, bearing drastic discrimination in their day to day lives. This is evident through Mariam’s mother’s life; Mariam’s mother, whom she calls Nana, used to be a housekeeper for Mariam’s father, Jalil. When Nana becomes pregnant with Mariam after she has an affair with Jalil, all fingers point toward her. Jalil’s wives demand that she be kicked out, and her father disowns and abandons her. To Mariam, Nana says that she often wishes that her father or Jalil “‘... had the stomach to sharpen one of his knives and do the honorable thing…’”, which she believes to be an honor killing (Hosseini 7). She tells her daughter that it may have been better for Mariam to have died before being born, and better for herself to never come to know life in exile. Nana’s acceptance of the idea of honor killings shows how integrated the practice is within society, further oppressing females and bolstering a sexist mindset. Equipped with experiences of oppression and gender discrimination, Nana takes it upon herself to ready Mariam for a world that will view her as an invalid. As a word of advice against such a world of skewed justice, she tells Mariam that “‘like a compass needle that always points north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman’” (Hosseini 7). Following the affair, Jalil lies to save his reputation, claiming that Nana forced herself upon him. Though women are often treated as lower-class citizens, they are expected to take full responsibility by default, regardless of where the fault may lay. Additionally, such discriminatory gender roles play into education, as well. When Mariam asks her mother to send her to school, Nana insists that such an idea is fruitless, and that she’ll “‘... learn nothing of value from those schools” because she believes that there is only one skill a woman needs in life, and “... they don’t teach it in school… it’s this: tahamil. Endure” (Hosseini 18). Mariam’s mother understands that their sex, as well as their social status, limits their opportunities, and believes it vital to instill this hopelessness into her child in order to ready her for life’s hardships. Though it was not entirely uncommon for a woman to pursue an education in Afghanistan in the 1960s, a lifetime of being treated poorly due to being female causes Nana to develop a sense of inferiority, thus restricting her and her daughter’s outlook on the future.
The novel dives into the marriage customs of Afghanistan from the 1960s onward through the depiction of Mariam and Rasheed’s marriage. Mariam is a mere 15 years old when she is married off to a 45-year-old man in Kabul, a city that is six hundred and fifty kilometers from Herat. Many child brides are separated from their old lives, isolated from their families, robbed of any opportunity of higher education, and married to men double or triple their age, just like Mariam. As justification for the marriage, one of the wives claims that she has seen “‘...nine-year-old girls given to men twenty years older’” than Mariam’s suitor, and that fifteen is a “good, solid marrying age for a girl” (Hosseini 47). Evidently, child marriages are a normalized practice in Afghanistan during this time period, and its devastating effects on the child bride undoubtedly affect Mariam. Mariam is envious of her half-sisters, who attend the Mehri School in Herat and plan to enroll in Kabul University. However, this marriage eliminates such prospects for Mariam. At this time, Mariam feels betrayed by her father, is mourning for her mother, and is still in shock from having to uproot her entire life and leave everything she has ever known behind. Fresh after marriage, Rasheed offers no consolation other than a week of letting her be. After one week, however, he tells her that he expects her to “‘... start behaving like a wife’”, as his house is not a “hotel” and he is not “‘some kind of hotelkeeper’” (Hosseini 65). Rasheed’s complete lack of sympathy for Mariam’s situation demonstrates how much pressure is placed on the wife and her performance is such marriages. The wife’s responsibility is to cook, clean, and look after the husband, and Mariam is forced to do all of the above for a stranger triple her age. However, these are not the only acts Rasheed expects of her. A few nights into Mariam’s marriage, Rasheed walks into her bedroom at night and rapes her, regardless of Mariam’s whimpers and pleas. Right afterward, without even looking at her, he tells her that there is “‘no shame in this’”, as sex is what “‘married people [and] the Prophet himself and his wives did’” (Hosseini 77). Rasheed’s comments show how sex is expected of the wife, and how marriage justifies rape. Mariam cannot take this rape to court and expect to win, and cannot be called a victim simply because her offender is her husband.
Throughout the novel, the husband-wife dynamic of child marriage is evident through Mariam and Laila’s marriages to Rasheed. Since the beginning of his marriage with Mariam, Rasheed outwardly expresses and enforces his ideas of what a proper wife should behave like, showcasing the more conservative viewpoints of one side of Afghanistan society. He believes that “‘... a woman’s face is her husband’s business only’”, and whenever he sees a woman walking around without a burqa, or worse, with a face full of makeup, he feels embarrassed to witness “‘... a man who’s lost control of his wife’” (Hosseini 70). Rasheed then gives Mariam a light blue burqa, which is a clothing item meant to cover the face, head, and body. His expectations for what a woman should act and look like in the home and public restrict Mariam’s day to day life, making her feel more trapped in a marriage she never willingly accepted in the first place. Rasheed’s beliefs objectify women, thus making them a mere belonging of their husbands. Because of Rasheed’s harsh enforcement, Mariam often finds herself deathly afraid of him, fearful for the next time he will lose his temper. Despite the fact that it is difficult to stomach his rude, degrading remarks and his rough punches, “...Mariam saw clearly how much a woman could tolerate when she was afraid [and] Mariam was afraid” (Hosseini 98) The skewed power dynamic illustrates how unhealthy their relationship is; child marriages and sexism pave the way for a gap in social status, thereby affecting the way the husband may view his wife. Just as Rasheed looks down on Mariam, later in the book, a few years into Rasheed and Laila’s marriage, Rasheed enforces his domination by reminding Laila that her “smarts” get her nowhere in life right now. To keep her in line, he asks her, “‘what’s keeping you off the streets, your smarts or me?’” (Hosseini 283). The little education Laila receives as a girl is rendered useless because of her marriage, as Rasheed effectively makes his wives entirely dependent on himself to assert his power. Rasheed’s manipulation is perceptible when he fakes the news of Tariq’s death to devastate Laila, and motivate her to marry him. It is not uncommon for child marriage to encompass manipulation and heavy dependency upon the husband, as such is the case for Mariam and Laila.
Through Mariam and Laila’s lives, Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns effectively depicts the historical presence of child marriages and gender discrimination within Afganistan society through depicting gender roles, marriage customs, and the skew of power within child marriages. In the current day, child marriage is yet a persistent problem; though the minimum age for marriage in Afganistan is, thankfully, now 18, many young girls are married off prematurely at ages 15 and 16. Often times, these marriages are as abusive as those of Mariam and Laila, who live in constant fear of instigating abuse from Rasheed. Living at home should not have to feel like tiptoeing through a land mine; regardless, this is the unfortunate reality for many young girls in Afghanistan today, though modern-day feminism has paved the way for a decrease in such marriages by raising the minimum age of marriage. Gender discrimination runs deeper than law, however, as the mindset of the general public can only be changed with time. Discrimination undoubtedly exists in the minds of the people of Afghanistan, just as it does everywhere else around the world. Some parts of Afghanistan are more conservative than others, so many cultural practices like honor killings and child marriages may persist more in some areas over others. This book takes the last thirty years of Afghanistan’s gender discrimination and displays it through the lives of two heroic women, who survive not only wartime in their country, but a decades-long marriage with Rasheed. Through Mariam and Laila’s narratives, the novel reflects upon what it is like to be a woman from the 1960’s to the early 2000s and shines contrast upon how far Afghanistan has come in recent years in terms of gender equality.
Raj Kapoor is an 18 yr/o playwright and book critic from London.
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