Excerpt from Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Another student got up and wrote in red:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that every marriage, no matter how good, will have ups and downs.

"This class is a wise one," Alys said to the delighted girl.

The classroom door creaked open from the December wind, a soft whistling sound that Alys loved. The sky was darkening and rain dug into the school lawn, where, weather permitting, classes were conducted under the sprawling century-­old banyan tree and the girls loved to let loose and play rowdy games of rounders and cricket. Cold air wafted into the room and Alys wrapped her shawl tightly around herself. She glanced at the clock on the mildewed wall.

"We have time for a couple more sentences," and she pointed to a shy girl at the back. The girl took a green chalk and, biting her lip, began to write:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that if you are the daughter of rich and generous parents, then you have the luxury to not get married just for security.

"Wonderful observation," Alys said kindly, for, according to Dilipabad's healthy rumor mill, the girl's father's business was currently facing setbacks. "But how about the daughter earn a good income of her own and secure this freedom for herself?"

"Yes, Miss," the girl said quietly as she scuttled back to her chair.

Rose-­Nama said, "It's Western conditioning to think independent women are better than homemakers."

"No one said anything about East, West, better, or worse," Alys said. "Being financially independent is not a Western idea. The Prophet's wife, Hazrat Khadijah, ran her own successful business back in the day and he was, to begin with, her employee."

Rose-­Nama frowned. "Have you ever reimagined the first sentence?"

Alys grabbed a yellow chalk and wrote her variation, as she inevitably did every year, ending with the biggest flourish of an exclamation point yet.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single woman in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a husband!

"How," Alys said, "does this gender-­switch from the original sentence make you feel? Can it possibly be true or can you see the irony, the absurdity, more clearly now?"

The classroom door was flung open and Tahira, a student, burst in. She apologized for being late even as she held out her hand, her fingers splayed to display a magnificent four-­carat marquis diamond ring.

"It happened last night! Complete surprise!" Tahira looked excited and nervous. "Ammi came into my bedroom and said, 'Put away your homework-­shomework, you're getting engaged.' Miss Alys, they are our family friends and own a textile mill."

"Well," Alys said, "well, congratulations," and she rose to give her a hug, even as her heart sank. Girls from illustrious feudal families like sixteen-­year-­old Tahira married early, started families without delay, and had grandchildren of their own before they knew it. It was a lucky few who went to college while the rest got married, for this was the Tao of obedient girls in Dilipabad; Alys went so far as to say the Tao of good girls in Pakistan.

Yet it always upset her that young brilliant minds, instead of exploring the universe, were busy chiseling themselves to fit into the molds of Mrs. and Mom. It wasn't that she was averse to Mrs. Mom, only that none of the girls seemed to have ever considered traveling the world by themselves, let alone been encouraged to do so, or to shatter a glass ceiling, or laugh like a madwoman in public without a care for how it looked. At some point over the years, she'd made it her job to inject (or as some, like Rose-­Nama's mother, would say, "infect") her students with possibility. And even if the girls in this small sleepy town refused to wake up, wasn't it her duty to try? How grateful she'd have been for such a teacher. Instead, she and her sisters had also been raised under their mother's motto to marry young and well, an expectation neither thirty-­year-­old Alys, nor her elder sister, thirty-­two-­year-­old Jena, had fulfilled.

Excerpted from Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal. Copyright © 2019 by Soniah Kamal. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.