How did you meet your spouse? 

I met my husband on a starry summer night when I was sixteen. It was love at first sight.  We dated for three years, he proposed on one knee, we had a huge wedding. My husband is Indian and bucked the Indian arranged marriage system. He says he got away with it because he is a man.

Me on the other hand, I grew up in the US with Gloria Steinem in the news, right after the sexual revolution, and with parents who raised me to be independent.  I’d be damned if anyone was going to tell me what to do. 

My guest this week is Ushma Dahya’s experience was vastly different from mine or my husband’s. Ushma is an accomplished pharmacist, mother of 2, wife for twenty years, and a recent immigrant to the U.S from an Indian community outside of Johannesburg, South Africa. And a cancer survivor.  In this episode, she tells the story of her arranged marriage, living in a household in which her husband’s parents dictated every detail of her life, and how her husband stood by her during her cancer fight. Her story may surprise western listeners, and I hope, bring to light the harmful circumstances many women endure because of their culture’s gender roles - and that there is hope.

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