Memoirs of a Young Woman with a Suitor

2010

If you're between 22 and 28 and still single, then your mom definitely wants you to get married.
And your hitched girlfriends would love for you to join the "married ladies" club.
And most of the people you know are trying to help you find your other half!

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Wasted Love

2017

At the beginning, my husband treated me like a friend and wife.
He was like he was a friend, a brother, a husband, and a son to me. He was good to me.
Then, he changed.
He treated me like I was a man and only occasionally like a woman.
I thought he was cheating on me.
domestic violence, parents, work, marriage, divorce, romantic relationships

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Her Family

2014

Her parents kept her locked up at home.
Her computer was always being watched.
Her job was located near her house.
She wasn’t allowed out on her own.
She was 33 years old.

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There's Nothing You Can Do About It

2012

You know, if you weren’t a public figure that appears on TV,
And who talks about women’s rights in the papers,
I would’ve loved you, married you, and made you quit your job to be a housewife.”

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Sukkara

2013

I used to always watch her from the examination room window in the government hospital that I worked at.
Her name was Sokkara. She was young. She couldn’t be older than 13 years old.

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Clean Up My Shit

2017

He used to hit me,
And curse me.
He wanted me to quit everything: work and school.
Because he wasn’t very ambitious.
He only agreed that I get a job when we decided he’d take my salary.
“You should thank God I married you,” he’d say.
“You’re supposed to clean up my shit.”
domestic violence, marriage, divorce, gender violence, physical violence

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My Aunt’s Morning After

2016

I remember I went to visit my aunt the morning after her wedding.
Everyone was in the bedroom talking about it.
Everyone would enter and look at the great wonder.

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Maysa

2010

I don't regret anything;
I just had no idea what I was getting myself into:
the lies, the secrecy, the plotting,
the unethicality of the women of the family I was marrying into
and the blind denial of the men.

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