Bicycling to JWDC

"My grandfather declared that a girl can't go to school but when I was 12 or 13 1 watched other girls going to school and I begged my mother until she let me go. But then the other students only made fun of me saying "So big and only in grade one!" For two or three days a week I studied until grade 3. Then news went around that boys and girls who attended school were making love marriages. I was fifteen and my mother again forbade me to go to school, and at sixteen my parents arranged my marriage.

At my husband's house I did the housework always worrying that they might beat me. My husband was only studying and helping his father
with his government job. When his father died he had no work but an uncle gave him land in another village. He spent a long time away. I was twenty-one and pregnant. I had no idea that in that village he made another marriage.

After my son was born I stayed with my parents. A few times they bought clothes and made special foods because news came that my husband was coming for me, but he never did. Then I was determined to go visit him. But my father said,' He hasn't come for you , how can you go alone? Everyone will say, 'What kind of a father are you -- letting your daughter go alone to such a husband'. I said, 'Why shouldn't I go? A year has passed since I've seen my husband'. So I was traveling with my younger brother when a woman stopped me and said, 'Where are you going? Don't you know your husband has taken another wife? You can go, but no good will come of it.'"

Heera Karna
Janakpur Women's Development Center
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