Marriage and divorce in the life of J&K’s women

Sometimes, when a bond breaks, it saves the very soul it once confined. Yet in our J&K, where the scent of chinar leaves mingles with the weight of unsaid words, divorce still echoes like a sin. It is uttered softly, as if naming it might bring shame to the walls that hear it. We, who have witnessed wars and winters, still tremble at the idea of a marriage ending, as if it were a crime, not a choice born of pain, reflection, and the simple human will to breathe freely again.

In Jammu & Kashmir, when a marriage breaks, it is not just two people parting ways, it feels as if an entire community gathers to pass its silent judgment. The woman becomes an object of pity or suspicion; the man, a symbol of failure or arrogance. And in this cruel theatre of perceptions, no one stops to ask, what must they have endured to take such a step?

Komal (name changed), a young woman from Doda, had dreamt of a gentle love. Her marriage began with promises and photographs, smiles and expectations, but soon turned into a battlefield of words that wounded deeper than any weapon. She endured humiliation, manipulation, and isolation, until her laughter, once loud and infectious, began to fade into quiet obedience.

When she finally gathered the courage to seek divorce, she did not expect applause, but she hoped for understanding. Instead, she was met with silence, the kind that cuts deeper than cruelty. Relatives whispered her story as though it were gossip, not grief. Even her parents, though supportive, lowered their voices when her name came up in gatherings.

Now, she teaches at a small private school, raising her head a little higher each morning. Her life is no longer bound by someone else’s approval, but society still refuses to unlearn its habit of labeling her as “the divorced one.”

We often forget that the stigma of separation spares no one. Raju, a young entrepreneur from Doda, decided to part ways after realizing that his marriage was more a cage than companionship. But society was not kind to him either.
“He must have been harsh,” people assumed. “He must have failed to keep his wife happy.” Proposals for remarriage faded the moment someone whispered, “He’s divorced.”

He once told me, his eyes distant yet steady, “Divorce didn’t break me, sir. People’s judgment did. It’s strange, we are allowed to mourn deaths with compassion, but not broken marriages with empathy.”

In these stories, of Komal, of Raju, of countless others whose names remain unspoken — lies a collective truth about our society’s discomfort with choice, especially when that choice is made in defiance of endurance.

The Paradox of Faith and Culture
What makes this stigma more tragic is the contradiction we live with. The faith we profess, Islam, neither glorifies nor prohibits divorce. It treats it as a last but legitimate resort, a means to preserve peace when love and respect have perished. Yet, in practice, our cultural pride often overrides our spiritual wisdom.

We would rather see two people live in quiet misery than part with dignity. We glorify the endurance of suffering but ridicule the courage of release. Our social gatherings overflow with discussions about others’ “failures,” while we ignore our own lack of compassion.

Divorce, in its essence, is not rebellion; it is the final act of honesty — the moment when two people admit that their hearts no longer share the same rhythm.

Even more heartbreaking is how divorce, or even a broken engagement, becomes a lifelong label that shadows people in their pursuit of new beginnings. The moment a woman or man is described as “divorced,” potential alliances vanish. Families hesitate, whispers begin, and the same society that once pushed them into marriage now denies them another chance at happiness.

A young woman from Marmat Goa once told me, “It’s not divorce that frightens me. it’s how the world will look at me after it.” Her fear is not misplaced. Our community’s gaze is harsh and unrelenting. We speak of forgiveness, of second chances, of destiny, yet we deny those very things to the living, breathing people before us.

As educators, writers, and citizens of this land, it is time to ask ourselves: Why do we make human frailty a spectacle? Why do we measure a person’s worth by the endurance of pain?

Divorce should not be celebrated, but it must be understood. It must be treated as a human choice — painful, yes, but often necessary. Every broken marriage is not a failure of morality; sometimes it is a triumph of self-respect.

We must teach our children that dignity does not lie in silence, and that walking away from toxicity is not rebellion but renewal. We must learn to look at those who separate not with suspicion, but with gentleness, for they have lived through a heartbreak most of us cannot imagine. Our valleys, after all, have seen enough storms. It is time our hearts learn calm.

If our society could learn to replace judgment with empathy, we might see fewer broken spirits even if marriages still fail. Perhaps then, a divorced woman could walk into a room without lowered glances, and a separated man could rebuild his life without shame. Divorce, in such a world, would not be an end, it would be a quiet turning of a page, an honest acceptance that some stories, no matter how beautifully they begin, must end for life to begin anew.

In the heart of Jammu and Kashmir, amid its songs and sorrows, this too is a truth worth embracing, that freedom, even when it comes dressed in the pain of separation, is still sacred.

THE AUTHOR IS A COLUMNIST AND FREELANCE WRITER