Affluent women in Pakistan have happier married lives

Lahore, June 23 : Pakistani women, who are married into affluent families, are reported to have happier married lives as compared to their less privileged counterparts, revealed a survey.

However, experts say that this was because a far less number of women from wealthy families go to courts to get divorce in order to keep their social status intact by not making their disputes public.

Conducted by Daily Times, the survey, based on courts data, analysed 300 cases out of 12,000, pending before family courts of the city and found that 7.8 percent women of Gulberg, DHA and Model Town (Gulberg 3 percent, DHA 2.2 percent and Model Town 2.6 percent) moved the courts. Usually, these cases are about suits for dissolution of marriage, maintenance, repayment of conjugal rights, and suit for recovery of dowry.

In fact, Bund Road alone has eight percent women who moved the courts to resolve their family disputes. About 32.7 percent women of less privileged areas have moved the courts to resolve their divorce disputes, according to the survey. Also, 7.1 percent women in Cantonment demanded marital rights through courts from their former husbands.

"Almost every married couple fights, but it is up to them how they resolve their matters. In affluent localities, people try to keep their social status intact by not making their disputes public. Women in posh localities being well educated try their best to resolve their family matters on their own. In case they have to part, they do it without intimating others or going to courts," The Daily Times quoted clinical psychologist Sajjad Ahmad, as saying.

He claimed that women residing in posh localities did not move the courts for recovery of dower, as they thought that it will blotch their family image.

He said, "Women in less privileged areas, being less educated, make mountains out of a molehill, disturbing their marital lives that later end in divorces."

He said that usually, women did not file cases against their former husbands, but it was their families that forced them to do so.

Advocate Surayya Farzand Chaudhry, who deals with family cases, said, "If a matter rises in a well-off family, it is resolved through conciliation and in few cases divorce takes place. If a dispute rises in a less privileged family, the husband beats the wife and forces her to leave home. In such cases, husbands neither let their wives return home, nor divorce them, which forces the women to approach the courts."

She added: "In several cases, the husband divorces his wife, but does not return her dower, which again leads the women to move the courts."

ANI