Wednesday, 7^th September 2005 | 9:01 PM
Pressured, but not ready

My sister's boyfriend family is officially coming over to meet with my parents this Saturday. An engagement is still a big enough do in my culture. Although arranged marriages are almost all over, the couple these days will still decide between themselves and in consultation with their respective families whether or not they're going to get engaged first, or skip that and just proceed to getting married. If they're choosing engagement, the guy's family will come over to the girl's home to meet with her family (usually it's the family elders meet the family elders thing) to formally ask for her hand in betrothal or whatever is the equivalent in English. Then both sides will agree on the 'engagement date'. On that day, the boy's family will come again to girl's family home. This time they will bring trays of gifts, together with the engagement ring, while it will be formalised in the presence of family and relatives on both sides how long the engagement period is going to be, and when the wedding date will be.

These days, rituals like this are simply formalisation of agreements, but I think they just serve to prove how the structure of the family is still a key part of Malay/Muslim culture.

The part that I'm quite pissed with my sister? It's not that she's beating me to being engaged or married. It's that while the guy's family comes over this Saturday, she's going to be away? What the heck? While my family expects ME to stay home and help my mom deal with the guests.

WHAT THE HECK?

I'm not the daughter that they're interested in. I'll just be the subject of their pity at best, ridicule at worst. I'll just be a liability that they have to remember because tradition states that if a younger sibling gets married before his/her older sister does, they guy's family is to provide a set of gifts for her as well.

I don't get the rationale. I think it just serves to humiliate that elder sibling. Especially if it's a girl.

Sometimes I feel that in this society, it doesn't matter how far or how long I go to school for, how capable I am or how well I do in my career, how much I earn, a woman who's unable to get married and who's inept and/or disinterested in the ways of home-making is still someone to be pitied or frowned upon.

Or maybe I'm just insecure.

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