Five Sisters, One Tyrant: A Rural Family's Battle with Patriarchy and Loss

We were five sisters born into a remote village, where the rhythm of life was dictated by the land and the iron will of our father. He farmed the fields and tended a handful of cows and sheep, his hands calloused from labor, his temper as unpredictable as a storm. From the earliest age, our mother—a quiet, honorable woman who kept our home spotless and every task on time—taught us one unbreakable rule: "Whatever your father says, answer 'Yes' and obey." Nothing happened without his permission. Not a meal, not a step outside, not a dream.

We loved him despite the fear. His rare smiles felt like sunlight breaking through clouds. But his outbursts poisoned everything. Daily arguments with our mother ended the same way: her body bruised, her face swollen. We'd huddle around her at night, five little girls sobbing over her wounds until exhaustion pulled us into sleep. That was our only way to comfort her—the mother who was our entire world.

Our fates were chained to a man too angry for reason, too proud for mercy. No one, not even Mother, dared speak against him.

My eldest sister, barely 13 and still chasing the joy of childhood games, was forced into marriage with our cousin—a man 12 years older, scarred by a skin condition that made others turn away. Father adored his nephew and saw no issue. "He's family," he said. Her pleas fell on deaf ears. She became a wife before she ever became a woman.

The second sister inherited Father's fire—quick-tempered, sharp-tongued. That spark pushed her further from him as she grew. Two failed marriages left her with two children and sole custody. She fought alone, her pride both shield and burden.

I was the third. With endless struggle and the quiet support of my eldest sister and her husband, I clung to school. I became a teacher—my small rebellion. Suitors came, but Father decreed: "You'll marry the neighbor's son." The boy I loved faded into memory. I obeyed.

The fourth sister escaped early, finding work in the city. Stubborn like Father, she rejected marriage altogether, carving out a solitary life far from the village and his reach.

The youngest was dragged into the same trap—forced to wed a relative whose cruelty mirrored Father's, worsened by drug addiction. Their path twisted into darkness.

Two or three years after her wedding, the nightly ritual repeated: Father's rage, Mother's beating. That night, she swallowed poison and lay down. She never woke. Whispers spread through the village like wildfire: "She killed herself from the beatings." The shame was too much. Father vanished the next day, telling no one where he went.

Six years of silence. Then my eldest sister tracked him down. He was alive, scraping by elsewhere, but refused to return. "I'm done," he said.

Mother gone. Father fled. The weight fell on my eldest sister. She became our mother, our father, our everything. She rented a home for the second sister and her kids. When the fourth fell for a foreigner online, my eldest begged her to stop—we knew nothing about him. But stubbornness won. She married, moved abroad, only to discover he was already wed with children. Heartbroken, pregnant with two more, she fell gravely ill and died far from home.

My eldest sister—the one who'd mothered us all through childhood terror and adult chaos—battled Parkinson's for years. The stress, the grief, the endless carrying of our burdens... it broke her. At 60, she left us too.

Now three sisters remain, scattered by life's relentless blows. No parents. No big sister to hold us together. Just the echo of a father's irresponsibility—his rage, his stubbornness—that rerouted our lives and claimed two of us.

We obeyed. We survived. But at what cost?