Longing to Belong by Saira Shah

The biggest thing that stood out to me after reading this story is the many differences between the society I have grown up in and the Afghan society portrayed by Shah. In the opening paragraph my attention was raised immediately when Shah described her uncle taking a piece of already chewed food from his mouth and giving it to her. She explained that her uncle doing this was the Afghan way of showing her that she was "valued" and "part of the family". This is very different than the society I have grown up in where simply chewing with your mouth open is considered very rude.
Another thing I found that conflicts with what I believe in was the fact that Shah was a part of an arranged marriage. I think that the decision to marry a person should be based on nobody's input other than the person who is getting married. In the society I am accustomed to, a person is free to marry who they want based on who they love. At one point in Shah's article, the word marriage and love is said to have nothing to do with each other and I fully disagree with this Afghan belief.
I also found that the way a husband and wife act once they are married in Afghanistan is not the way I feel things should be. The husband was partying and having a good time while the bride was forced to sit there in silence and do nothing. In our society, once a couple is married they both have the same rights. The wife has just as much say on things as the husband (in most marriages) . This concept is quite different than the Afghan idea of marriage in the story. Although I may not agree with some of the things in the story, Shah did a good job showing how different the culture is in Afghanistan compared to what the culture is here in America.