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Purdah
The opposite of an arranged marriage, this is a union entered into voluntarily by young Bengalis, usually against the wishes of their parents. Hasina and Malek’s marriage is a love marriage. It ends in misery. Jorina, a neighbor of Nazneen’s in Tower Hamlets, sends her sixteen-year-old daughter home to Bangladesh to ensure the girl does not enter into a love marriage with a British boy. Then she immediately arranges a marriage for the girl to a Bengali. Even Razia, who seems to defy convention at every opportunity, tells Nazneen that her daughter, Shefali, is only welcome to enter into a love marriage over her dead body. Arranged marriages allow parents to exercise control over who their children marry. Love marriages are, to many parents anyway, far too risky. Their children might marry someone from an “unsuitable” family or, worse yet, outside the Islamic faith.
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Love Marriage Term Timeline in Brick Lane
The timeline below shows where the term Love Marriage appears in Brick Lane. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
...Hamlets, Chanu explained to her the hierarchy of the complex’s inhabitants. Many, he said, are Sylhetis, peasants who would never even think to pick up a book. They were low class...
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