theguardian: by Abigail Haworth.
When her widowed mother remarried, Parvin Rema, then 13, was part of the deal – one of several such arrangements in Bangladesh. Abigail Haworth talks to mothers and daughters about a particularly knotty relationship
As a child in rural Bangladesh, Orola Dalbot, 30, enjoyed growing up around her stepfather, Noten. Her father died when she was small, and her mother remarried soon after. Noten was handsome and energetic, with curly dark hair and a broad smile. “I thought my mother was lucky,” Orola says when we meet in the dusty, sun-baked courtyard of her family home in the central forest region of Modhupur. “I hoped I’d find a husband like him one day.” When she reached puberty, however, Orola learned the truth she least expected: she was already Noten’s wife.
Her wedding had taken place when she was three years old in a joint ceremony with her mother. Following tradition in the matrilineal Mandi tribe, an ethnic group of about two million people spread across hill regions of Bangladesh and India, mother and daughter had married the same man. “I wanted to escape when I found out,” says Orola. “I was shaking with disbelief.”
Categories: Asia, Culture and Traditions, Marriage