oh no megan!

In class this week, we’re giving presentations on a topic of our choice to learn how to properly write and present assignments in German so that we don’t all look like total fools. (Today we saw three: renewable energy, foie gras, and the one that I’m about to tell you about. Mine is on the abolition of nuclear weapons.) The class consists of 15 students (plus an amazing teacher) from fourteen different countries: Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Iran, Kenya, Kuwait, Nepal, Nicaragua, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, and Uzbekistan (and then, I’m from America and the teacher is German).

Although I recognize that my school is not by any stretch of the imagination cheap, and my classmates all must come from relatively well-to-do backgrounds in their respective homelands, it’s worth noting that every single one of my classmates comes from a “developing” nation and although some of them may come from move privileged backgrounds than myself, I likely had more advantages than they did from a young age, whether those be growing up in a liberal New England household with a professor for a father, spending summers traveling or wasting days at summer camp, or attending a rigorous prep school.

As it currently stands, I’m the only student from North America currently enrolled in the school that I attend, and one of only a handful that they have had over the past dozen years. For me, going to a university in Germany won’t give me a giant step up in the world as it will my classmates. In saying this, I’m doing my best to avoid ethnocentrism or culture bashing or anything of the like, but rather just lay out the cards in play.

So back to the sexism. One of the Bangladeshi students in my class - whom I usually disregard as he a) can hardly speak German and b) never has anything of value to contribute - was giving his presentation on what has the possibility to be a great topic: is marriage important in life. I was hoping that he would disprove my expectations and present something thoughtful that we could then discuss as a class. It had promise at first, when he renounced marriage, but quickly fell apart as he carelessly argued both sides of the issue in a completely unsystematic method. As soon as he was one, another student had to stop and ask “wait, are you for or against marriage?” as at no point was it clear. Another yet had to ask what, exactly, his topic had been.

Somehow this all devolved into a classroom discussion about marriage and the traditions that surround it in our homelands, or rather, namely his: Bangladesh. The Uzbek asked what the marriageable age is there, and we quickly found out 21 for males and 18 for females. This struck me as completely bizarre (the difference in allowable age, which since getting home and searching the internet I’ve found is really quite common in other countries ((and, actually, from state to state in America - in Massachusetts females can be married at 12 with parental and judicial consent?)), leaving me somewhere between indignant and baffled) but things only proceeded to get stranger. I wasn’t going to explode over the age difference, even though it reeked of patriarchy, as I’ve been doing my best to respect the cultures of those around me.

Anyway, the Uzbek quickly asked why it was so old, and said that where he’s from, girls get married at 3 or 4. In looking at wikipedia, it says the marriageable age in Uzbekistan is 17 for females, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was telling the truth for non-legal unions. Our teacher quickly jumped in and said he believed that in most countries it was quite a bit older than that, and I loudly agreed. 

The discussion quickly moved to the topic of polygamy: polygamy is legal in four (or five, if you count Kenya, where it’s legal under customary, but not civil, law) of the countries represented in my class. The Bangladeshi giving the presentation said that he was going to move back to Bangladesh once his studies were over and probably have three wives, although he can have as many as he’d like. But I still didn’t say anything inflammatory towards the culture of another student, even though my mind was reeling.

What actually made me burst was the declaration from the student from Uganda that people who are the same age should never get married because the wife won’t respect the husband enough if she isn’t significantly younger than him. I lost it. On any given day, I’m usually on pretty good terms with this classmate, but I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I told him I didn’t understand what he was saying, as a marriage is a partnership and partners need to be respectful of one another, regardless of the age difference between them. I referenced wonderfully functioning relationships in which the members are the same age, such as that of my parents, and mentioned that a relationship should be built on trust and mutual consideration and not on a bed of deference and fear by one of the partners - namely the woman - as he was suggesting it should be. I was, in a word, angry.

But it went beyond that. I was appalled that people are brought up thinking that is how relationships must work. I was frustrated that such notions are still valid in parts of the world, and that they’re bought into by people intelligent enough to be in the same classroom and working towards the same goals as I. It was just a moment of clarity, if you will, within a moment of rage. And I don’t know what I can do to change it.