Ring fingers

View from King Tuthmosis III's Tomb
Theban Hills
Valley of the Kings
West Bank, Luxor, Egypt

One of my favorite women badasses out there recently got hitched. Usually, I'd be handing out the mithai myself- a Pakistani custom- in times of celebration you hand out sweetmeats to your friends and neighbors (like cigars, except better?).
First things first-
Most of you know who Mukhtaran Bibi is- the woman who successfully challenged her rape attackers in court. Subjected to gang rape because her younger brother was accused (falsely) of having sex with a woman of a higher caste tribe, Mukhtaran Mai has now written an autobiography, runs several schools and a women's aid group in her village.

The New York Times covered it here. As days passed and Mukhtaran Mai's marriage hit more newstands a few things about women in Pakistani society has become a little more clear.
Zofeen Ebrahim covers the story again here- this time a little more shockingly. This is not your cushy NYTimes wedding announcement from before.

I suppose typically in Western society, the police constable would have divorced his first wife and then married Mukhtaran Mai- but that's not how things work in Pakistan. As the article reports, to avoid watta satta or exchange marriages, the police constable was unable to divorce his first wife, or his two sisters would have been kicked out of their families. Complicated? a little.
Mukhtaran Mai's on one hand is being commended by Western society for having married after having been raped (via NYTimes), a stigma she successfully battled down. Which in all honesty, is great. Most women in Pakistan with the social stigma of having been raped wouldn't dream of getting married, much less getting married in a choice marriage as she claims this one is-
On the other hand, women's rights activists in Pakistan, it seems, are disappointed that she put the first wife in such a position.
And, the article points out, the marriage may simply be a convenient way for her to have married someone with influence over the tribe that gang raped her.