Another wedding season has wrapped up in Pakistan. While the season runs from November to February, Pakistani weddings have become a significant cultural institution, intended as they are to signal the family's social and economic identity. An average wedding event with 200-500 guests costs between PKR 800,000 and PKR 1.5 million (USD 2,863 – USD 5,370), with a typical wedding of 3 events costing at least PKR 3 million (USD 11,000). For a country with an average annual household income of under USD $4,000, this represents an exorbitant expenditure, which many families meet by withdrawing their savings.
The huge expenses notwithstanding, two major cultural shifts regarding weddings have occurred in the last decade or so.
Firstly, a huge change surrounding the norms of propriety has occurred across the class system. While weddings still constitute gender valuing, such as the provision of the dowry by the bride’s family, the events have increasingly become more inclusive of a bride’s celebration. For example, it was impossible not too long ago to imagine a bride actively participating, let alone dancing at her own wedding, instead of sitting shyly beside her groom with her eyes cast down. Exceptions exist, of course. But the paradigm shift in the traditional conception of the exhibition of a bride’s propriety is undeniable.
Secondly, social media has transformed weddings into performances intended to be viewed by thousands of social media users through public pages of photographers, designers, and makeup artists. Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter have socially reconstructed marriage as an empowering event - with the bride at the center of the wedding celebrations - disseminating the myth that a big, dramatic wedding is an indicator of marital bliss to follow.
Behavioral studies have shown how individuals often make decisions by relying on the feelings associated with the consumption of the good, rather than the actual utility of the good itself, a process known as affective forecasting. Social media has converted marriage into a consumption good, available for mass consumption through social media handles and a substitute for asking difficult questions regarding true female empowerment.
By constantly inundating users with curated wedding photos, movie-style entries, and lavish decors, social media has created what Daniel Kahneman has called a ‘focusing illusion,’ i.e., by focusing so much on specific aspects of a wedding, it has created a distorted perception of its value. Framing weddings as joyous celebrations around a bride tends to provide an experienced utility among the women scrolling through these pictures on social media. This, in turn, results in a subconscious conflation of female agency with these heavily dressed and bejeweled brides. Combined with the cultural shift of weddings becoming more participatory and permitting of the bride’s celebration, as opposed to her passive presence pre-signaling the assigned role of a dutiful wife awaiting her, social media has perpetuated the illusion of brides being somehow more empowered today.
The reductionism of the institution of marriage to a wedding celebration is not new – but its excessive glorification through social media indoctrinates a dangerous myth about a fairytale among women, which has far-reaching implications for the patriarchal Pakistani society. Behavioral studies have shown how individuals often make decisions by relying on the feelings associated with the consumption of the good, rather than the actual utility of the good itself, a process known as affective forecasting. Social media has converted marriage into a consumption good, available for mass consumption through social media handles and a substitute for asking difficult questions regarding true female empowerment. Thus, enticing women to aspire to these grand weddings without thinking about the utility of marriage itself.
I wonder how many brides, while planning their wedding, ever read a copy of their nikkahnama, the underlying legal contract with their partner, let alone understand it? How many of them, for example, would know that while religion provides them with the right to divorce, it is struck out by default unless specifically requested otherwise?
Per the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in 2020, 90 percent of Pakistani women experience domestic violence in their lifetimes. Well-documented anecdotal evidence shows that Pakistan’s low divorce rate does not signal any triumph for “family values,” but rather signifies the extremely difficult process of obtaining a divorce by women.
For a country that ranks 142nd out of 146 countries on the Global Gender Gap Report 2023, instead of utilizing social media as a reductionist agent to reduce the enormity of marriage to a glamorous wedding, Pakistan must use it to educate women on their marital rights, financial literacy, and birth control, among others, before they undertake a partnership for life.
The truth is women’s lives, even those who grow up in affluence, remain strictly confined to the spaces delineated by patriarchy, with marriage being considered the most important achievement. Many girls at my college, itself an elite private institution, knew their degree was only a stepstone to gaining respectful marriage proposals, as they would never be allowed to work or pursue graduate studies. The same mindset operates on the other side: expecting a well-educated daughter-in-law who will choose to spend the rest of her life as a housewife is socially acceptable. If the girl insists on working, the standard response is, “What is the need?” For many women, an equal partnership remains an unthinkable prospect, and marriage signifies nothing more than a lifetime submission. Hence, their only solace lies in fantasizing about that day intended to celebrate the whole of their lives.
Thus, patriarchy has carved a space – in which women are allowed to wear expensive dresses, doll up from salons, be captured in beautiful photos, and celebrate weddings as a milestone, all the while depriving them of any real agency over their lives.
For a country that ranks 142nd out of 146 countries on the Global Gender Gap Report 2023, instead of utilizing social media as a reductionist agent to reduce the enormity of marriage to a glamorous wedding, Pakistan must use it to educate women on their marital rights, financial literacy, and birth control, among others, before they undertake a partnership for life.
In India, for example, hashtag movements on social media in collaboration with the government, NGOs, and MNCs such as Google have been crucial in educating women about multiple issues, including menstrual taboos, domestic violence, digital safety, etc. In Pakistan, no comparable “#Hashtag Feminism,” or any other feminist activism, except for #MeToo, has existed.
True empowerment will entail encouraging women to look beyond the glitter of a wedding and critically evaluate the utility of the marriage for themselves. This can only be accomplished if we learn, and teach women, to distinguish between actual achievements stemming from individual talent and hard work and mere life events such as marriage. This will mark an important step towards leveling the gendered playing field. It will not be easy, given the entrenched patriarchal attitudes, but it is the only way forward.