A Thousand Splendid Suns: Marginalization Of Women In Afghan Society

The society of Afghanistan has been for such a long time considered as conservative and historically tied. Diverse religious and political routines influenced the general public and pushed it back far from civilization and modern types of life. Hosseini seem to indicate tremendous enthusiasm towards the past, present and future territory of Afghan, his native land in his books. He plants the seed of sympathy in the brains of the peruser through his outline of the battles of the people of Afghan in different points of view in his books, for example, the womanhood or feministic viewpoint in the novel. Hosseini’s second novel A Thousand Splendid Suns outlines the components that underestimate the Afghan women through the social, political and religious limitations reluctantly constrained upon them in reality. Hosseini explores the current situation with social prohibition of the Afghan women through the characters of Mariam and Laila in the novel.

A Thousand Splendid Suns is a frightful, deplorable, convincing story of an unforgiving time, an improbable companionship, and an unbreakable love. It is immediately a mind-boggling account of thirty years of Afghan history, and a profoundly moving story of family, fellowship, confidence, and the salvation to be found in adoration. The story is an account told from the perspective of the two women characters, Mariam and Laila. Each shows how they were raised, what they lost as the after effect of war, and how at last, their quality and persevering expectation helped them confront their destiny.

The story covers three many decades of anti-Soviet jihad, civil war and Taliban oppression seen from the points of view of two women. Mariam is the hated ill-conceived daughter of a wealthy businessman, constrained at age fifteen into marrying Rasheed, who develops progressively savage when she was unable to produce a child. After eighteen years, Rasheed takes another spouse, fourteen year-old Laila, a shrewd and energetic young girl who’s only other different choices is prostitution or starvation, soon after her parents are killed by rocket fire. Mariam and Laila both progress toward becoming accomplices in a battle with Rasheed, whose brutal maltreatment is supported by custom and law.

Hosseini gives a mighty portrayal of dictatorship where women are subject to fathers, spouses and particularly children, the bearing of male children being their only way to an acknowledged societal position. Each women at last is implemented to acknowledge a way that will never be completely cheerful for them: to spare Laila, Mariam should forfeit her life after she kills their husband where as Laila, despite the fact that marrrying her childhood love, should figure out how to keep the forfeit Mariam has produced and not turning it into an act done in futile. Brought into the world an age separated and with exceptionally different thoughts regarding adoration and family, Mariam and Laila are two women united jarringly by war, by misfortune and by destiny. As they bear the consistently heightening threats around them, in their home just as in the boulevards of Kabul, they come to frame a bond that makes them the two sisters and mother-daughter to one another, and that will at last change the course of their own lives as well as of the generation to come. With tragic power and anticipation, Hosseini indicates how a women’s affection for her family can move her to horrifying and gallant demonstrations of generosity, and that at last it is love, or even the memory of adoration, that is often the key to existence.

The theme of marginalization is one of the significant aspect of the novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns. The term marginalization is alluded as the social procedure by which an individual or a group of people are made peripheral or progress toward becoming consigned to the periphery or edge of society. It happens when individuals are pushed to the edge of a society, usualy as an impact of segregation influencing the individual to distend and appear to be unique from every other person. In this manner they feel alone and left out from whatever remains of society.

Marginalization creeps into the minds of individuals of various countries because of different reasons in various periods, as the Africans were underestimated by the Americans due to their colour while the Indians were separated among themselves based on the community or caste they were born into. Moreover, the women of Afghan were underestimated by the contrary sexual orientation of their own country as a result of the unconventional pervasiveness of the male domination in all strolls of typical life. While examining the reason for the ascent of the issue of marginalization thrust over the Afghan women by the male centric culture one can follow the reasons by concentrating on the three distinct parts of social, political and religious foundation of the Afghan history with a suggestion to the non-stop battle looked upon by the two female characters Mariam and Laila all through the novel.

First the effect of religion in underestimating the women in Afghan is contemplated with reference to the sections in Quran that confirm the privileges of women in the Islam community. As per Quran, Islam maintains balance; people are equivalent, yet they have distinctive jobs throughout everyday life. In the novel, women were not considered as genuine individuals and their job in life is simply to cook and clean. Religion has a characteristic role in the progress of any nation. It is considered as an imperative part and an ethical premise in the society. It can firmly impact any environment as it can influence their way of life in different ways. This is the reason, religion runs in parallel with the social standards as a major aspect of culture; it can drive any individual transferring on their convictions and their right or mistaken understandings, that shape their destiny and state of mind in their milieu.

Religion assumes an increasingly important role in forming the destiny of each person, and it is religion that chooses the ethical quality of a person’s life. Thus religion assumes an essential role in characterizing the rights and equity of women, as the political and social part of Muslim nations like Iran, Afghan, Pakistan and so on, are totally founded on the religious interpretation of the Holy Quran. Men are viewed as the proctectors and maintainers of women, while women are the obedient ones and guarders. These words make it difficult to clarify precisely what kind of rights women have, and it is notable that women’s rights shift in different Islamic nations. No place in the Quran does it say women are the workers of men, and consequently in a few nations women have differing degrees of rights with regards to marriage and separation, clothing regulation, education, business, and so forth. Understanding of the Quran lies at the base of these essential issues and has raised the name of Islam being a female prejudiced religion.

Islamic woman’s rights looks to come back to the picture of Islam being a delightful and far reaching religion that advances uniformity. Despite what might be expected, ‘sharia’ the Islamic law also called Muslim personal law (MPL) or Muslim family law has thus far been built tenets with prickly issues which incorporate a polygyny, divorce, care of children, upkeep and conjugal property and so forth. In addition, there are also progressively large scale issues with respect to the underlyimg presumptios of such enactment, for instance, the assumption of the man as leader of the family unit.

Endogamy, virilocality and polygyny are practically normal in certain Islamic nations. All over the place, anyhow, polygamy is banned or disallowed by new family codes. Polygamy is allowed under restricted conditions, yet it is not boundless. However, it is firmly debilitated in the Quran, which says, ‘do justice to them all, but you won’t be able to, so don’t fall for one totally while ignoring other wife (wives).’ This additionally should be taken in authentic setting, as this was really a restriction on the number of wives men of the Arabian clans can take. Once in a while Pre-Islamic men may have up to eight spouses. Women are not permitted to take part in polyandry, though men are permitted to participate in a polygyny.