Husbands In A Thousand Splendid Suns By Khaled Hosseini

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Recommended: Traditional Roles of Men & Women in Families

‘Happy wife, happy life’, this is a very common saying in marriage but one does not usually hear one for a husband. It is great for a wife to be happy, but it is great for a husband too. In taking care of a household and a family, it is more common to hear that the wife does more than the husband. For instance, the wife cleans, cooks, watches the children, does laundry, etc. Not many men are known to do that, especially in a very traditional home. Husbands are commonly known to be the breadwinners of the family and to be the most masculine in the household. It is their job to be the head of the household and to take care of the family. In the novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, he writes about a very traditional man, Rasheed, …show more content…

Even though it is something that this society is not used to, in that society it is all they know. As for Rasheed, who is Pashtun and grew up only knowing their tradition and the ways of a Pashtun man, this arranged marriage did not come to him as a surprise or as something wrong. For instance, Pashtun means ‘man of honor’, which explains why Rasheed is the way that he is. Rasheed is masculine, about honor, independent, and other things that pertain to his culture. The Pashtun culture is mainly centered around honor and the importance of maintaining loyalty to friends, even allies. In the article PAKISTAN/AFGHANISTAN: The Pashtun Man, Abdul-Karim Khan states “A Pashtun’s womenfolk, property, and land are his inviolable assets - especially women” (Khan 2006), discusses that along with them caring so much about their honor, there are other things that are sacred to them. A Pashtun man spends his life defending his family’s honor and name, no matter the situation. Along with that the Pashtun culture believes heavily on the principle of revenge and holds the statement ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’ to a high standard. This is the way Rasheed was brought up and Miriam should be honored to be apart of such a great culture because she will be honored and

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