Pakistani morning shows have a talent for turning deeply regressive ideas into digestible life lessons, and the recent remarks by Saba Faisal are a prime example.
When Saba Faisal said that a woman must be “goongi aur behri” for a marriage to work, she clarified that this silence is expected not just with the husband, but specifically within the susraal. She was validating a system that thrives on women saying less, feeling less, and demanding nothing.
This idea that a bride must enter her marital home muted listening but never responding, enduring but never reacting has long been normalised in Pakistan. What’s disturbing is seeing it repeated so casually, as if it’s a reasonable expectation rather than a deeply unequal one.
And just when you think it can’t get worse, she moves on to criticise mothers of grooms who allow their daughters in law basic autonomy something as scandalous as choosing their own clothes for the biggest day of her life. According to her logic, if you let a bride make decisions from day one, she’ll develop ideas. Preferences. A sense of self. The horror.
Let’s pause here.
You are welcoming someone’s daughter into your home. Not adopting a hostage. Not onboarding a silent intern. Not acquiring a mannequin who exists solely to blend into your furniture.
Control does not begin with violence; it begins with small permissions being taken away and framed as “discipline,” “tradition,” or “adjustment.”
In Pakistan, where women already struggle to be heard within marriages, this mindset has far-reaching consequences. Silence is often the reason abuse goes unreported. Silence is why many women stay in unhappy or unsafe marriages. Silence is why daughters grow up watching their mothers endure and believe that love looks like suffering.
It is silence that allows emotional abuse to be dismissed as “family matters.”
It is silence that keeps women trapped in unhappy or unsafe homes.
It is silence that is later praised as sabr.
Perhaps the greatest irony is the claim, “She’s like our daughter.” Because daughters are allowed to be loud, opinionated, expressive, and human. It is only when a woman becomes a daughter-in-law that these same qualities are suddenly reframed as disrespect.
What makes this particularly troubling is the platform. Morning shows are not private conversations. They enter millions of homes, shaping opinions across generations. When celebrities speak without reflection, their words gain authority simply because of who is saying them.
Do celebrities on morning shows truly believe they are just chatting over chai? Or is this selective amnesia forgetting that they are speaking from a position of influence, on national television, to millions of viewers? When did “personal opinion” become a shield against accountability?
And who exactly benefits from this advice? Who is protected when women are told to be goongi aur behri in their susraal? Is it family harmony or is it a system that runs smoothly only when women do not speak, question, or disrupt it? If silence really produced healthy marriages, Pakistan would not be struggling with the realities it does today.
To be honest, we are tired. Tired of explaining why telling women to shrink themselves is harmful. Tired of having to point out, again and again, that silence is not strength and endurance is not empowerment. Tired of watching the same regressive ideas resurface every few months, repackaged by different faces, defended as “experience,” and passed off as wisdom.
At what point do public figures pause and ask themselves whether what they are saying helps or harms? Because in a country where women already carry the burden of keeping families intact at their own expense, repeating these narratives is not harmless nostalgia it is active participation in the problem.
If this conversation feels repetitive, it is because the mindset refuses to evolve. And until it does, the question remains unavoidable: why, in 2025, are women still being asked to go silent so everyone else can stay comfortable?
In a society already stacked against women’s voices, this carelessness is not is damaging. By 2025, the least we can expect is a pause before reinforcing ideas that women have been trying to unlearn for decades.
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