A commenter on the last post explaining the first part of the wedding in Pakistan asked "How did he get married if the bride wasnt allowed in the mosque?" Well, that's a good question and rather than explain it in the comments section, I thought I should probably write a post about it.
In Pakistani (Muslim?) weddings, the bride has a personal representative called a Wakeel. (Often spelled Vakil, but it's pronounced like wuh-keel and the word actually means attorney or guardian.) I think this is true of all Pakistani weddings, in fact all Muslim weddings, regardless of whether the bride is present to exchange her own wedding vows or not. So in this case, the bride would have told her Waqeel (her brother) about her consent to this marriage, and he went off to the mosque to do the deed. I'm not sure whether she signed the contract beforehand, afterwards, or what - but I can ask. (And let's hope she didn't change her mind after he left the house, I guess she's out of luck then!)
I also had a Waqeel for my wedding as I was told at the time that it is a requirement of an Islamic wedding (and I haven't heard otherwise since.) I picked out my own Waqeel - it has to be a Muslim male, so I asked a friend to do it. This was one of those compromises of my life that I was not happy with - it should have been my father. After all, if the purpose of the Waqeel is to secure the woman's unbiased consent and protect her interests in the marriage negotiations & proceedings, then it seems to me the bride's father should be the person to do it. (Interestingly, in the comments sections on the last post, another commenter mentioned the bride's father having to be far away at the time to preserve the bride's autonomy to NOT give her consent if that's her wish, which is an entirely different perspective!) In any event, the imam officiating the wedding asked for my consent directly, so all my Waqeel was there to do was sign the contract in his capacity as my representative, in effect testifying that I was consenting freely. (But what if I WASN'T?!?! Plot twist!)
So that's all I know about the Waqeel. If any of you know more, specifically this stuff in Pakistani culture, enlighten us in the comments, please!
