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A Second Wife
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28 Mar 2005
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Today, as our children were playing outside with the neighborhood kids, a wedding car passed by our house. "Mama! Mama!" they came running to tell me, "our best friends' uncle just got married!" The car wasn't decorated with flowers and streamers as they usually are. There wasn't a long procession of vehicles with friends and family escorting the bride to her new home as is common here. No, the car drove quietly by--the driver looking straight ahead. The new bride, covered by a white veil sat next to her new husband. The first wife sat behind them, probably wondering what life would be like now--sharing her husband with another, much younger woman.
This scene, though shocking as it may sound, is not uncommon among our people. It is a matter of necessity, of survival. Though the man and first wife have been happily married for more than a dozen years, their union has produced no children. They are getting older; they are worried. Who will care for them in their later years? There are no nursing homes or assisted living facilities and no help from the government for the elderly. It is the oldest son who cares for his parents in their old age. They have both been examined by a physician; the weakness is in the woman's body. The recommended treatment--take a second wife. Perhaps the new wife can start a family for them all. Doesn't it sound like the scenario of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar? But this is modern day. This is reality for the Hazara of Afghanistan.
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