Obedience, Trauma, and the Unwanted Daughter

I still vividly remember my grandmother saying to one of my aunts, who was married to her son, “I endured a difficult marriage, so why should you deserve any better?”

In truth, my grandmother did go through an incredibly hard life. Her husband abused her for years and then abandoned her to raise six children on her own. She once told me that the happiest moment of her life was when he finally married another woman. By then, her children were grown, and at last, in her late 40s, she had the keys to her own apartment. She was alone, and for the first time, truly free.

Though she never remarried, nothing mattered more to her than her five sons. She had a daughter too, but it always seemed like her sons could do no wrong. Even when they mistreated or neglected their wives, she defended them. It was as if their affection towards her was a reward for everything she had endured. I remember her often saying randomly, “Without men, the world would be in constant wars. The world was created for men, and women were the problem.” In her eyes, women were trouble.

If any of her sons showed too much love towards their wives or spent too much time with their children, she would belittle them. To her, those sons were fools — weak men who were being controlled by their wives.

I vividly recall one of my uncles’ wives visiting my grandmother to complain about my uncle, and true to form, my grandmother made excuse after excuse, brushing her off with, “You’re a woman — know your place in the world. You’re no better than any of us.” It struck me that she couldn’t bear the thought of another woman having a better life than she had. Despite the powerlessness she endured, due to both our culture and religion, she believed her sons deserved to dominate their wives, almost as if it were their God-given right. To her, the idea that a woman could live without suffering seemed both arrogant and disrespectful — not just towards her son, but towards her own experience.

Sadly, this mindset was passed down to my mother, who, just like her own mother, has six sons and only one daughter. My mother went through the same experience with my grandmother, feeling unwanted for being born female.

I remember how my mother pushed my brothers to get married, but once they did, an overwhelming sadness always lingered when their marriages were mentioned. When my brothers started building their own lives and creating some distance, she would fight and argue, saying, “I come first. I come before your wife and your children.” When two of my brothers had daughters, she remarked to one, “Why is your wife behaving as if she’s given birth to a boy?” It was as though she couldn’t acknowledge her granddaughters as something to celebrate.

There was also a time when I refused to consider a man I felt wasn’t right for me. I explained to her that I didn’t want to experience what she had gone through with my father. Her face filled with anger, and she snapped, “I’m nothing like you. At least I had a man marry me young! I can’t believe you’re insulting your father and me.”

That’s when it hit me — my happiness didn’t matter to her. It was all about her. It was as if she saw my life as a competition and couldn’t stand the thought of me having a better marriage than she did.

Now, when I look at my two sisters-in-law, I see them following the same patterns. Both have daughters, but they were disappointed when they found out they were having girls. One even asked me if my family was upset because she hadn’t given birth to a son, praying that her next child would be a boy. Both of them grew up with controlling mothers who made it clear that women were meant only for serving, getting married, and obeying every command.

So, it shouldn’t have surprised me when one of them became angry that I refused to marry a man I felt was too old for me and culturally inappropriate. She sneered at me, saying, “You can’t get everything you want in life. You just need to get married and get on with it, like everyone else.”

Another sister-in-law once asked why my brothers — the same brothers I helped raise — don’t control or abuse me and why they allow me to walk around without a headscarf. She couldn’t understand why I refused to be submissive, even to my younger brothers, and believed it was my duty to cook, clean, and financially support them. In her view, as an unmarried woman, that was my role until I married and obeyed my husband.

And then there’s my mother. She looks at other girls who “respect” their families by obeying their every word — what to wear, where to go, who to marry, how to run their marriage — and she can’t help but compare me to them. Despite the fact that I helped raise her children and supported her financially for over a decade, I still see the contempt in her eyes. It’s as though she’s silently screaming, “Why won’t you let me control you?”

She has even said to me, “If you lived back home, you would have been beaten and put in your place a long time ago.”

I’m not sure what to call this —, control, hatred or simply the fact that misery loves company, with the added justification that it’s “God’s will.” Whatever it is, I can’t think of anything more toxic.

I can’t deny that it was incredibly tough growing up, struggling to understand why wanting to be loved and treated equally to my brothers always sparked arguments. It was confusing and painful to see how the women in my family seemed to tolerate this inequality while showering love on my brothers. Whenever I tried to assert my independence or express my exhaustion from constantly obeying and serving the men and older women in my family, I faced backlash for stepping out of line.

Even though these experiences caused me significant pain and made me feel trapped, I’ve come to see them differently now. I realise that what I went through is a manifestation of generational trauma reinforced by a religious framework that doesn’t respect women. It creates a space where women are pitted against each other for scraps of respect and power in a system that wasn’t designed to empower us. Understanding this has been a difficult but crucial step in my journey, and I’m grateful for the clarity it has brought.