Saher Shah’s new play Vitamin D breaks down the stigma of divorce
For many women, the decision to end a marriage is made even harder by the negative attitudes of family, friends and the wider community
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When Fatima, 38, ended her marriage in 2018, her parents and ex-husband hid her decision from family and the wider community for a whole year. After seven years together, the couple separated amicably, agreeing that they were simply no longer compatible. Outside of the family home, however, Fatima, who is of Pakistani heritage, had to pretend that nothing had changed and that she hadn’t just become the first divorcee in her family’s history.
“My parents felt a lot of shame,” she says. “I was owning the fact that I was divorced, but they weren’t speaking about it at all. They just brushed it under the carpet.”
The social stigma around divorce and how it affects South Asian women is the central theme of Vitamin D, a new play by Saher Shah, which is showing at Soho Theatre until 21 September. Shah also plays the lead role of Larki, a British Pakistani woman who has moved back into her parents’ home after leaving an emotionally abusive marriage.
The play opens with Larki and her mother at home, when a nosy neighbour, referred to throughout as Aunty, comes over for the first time after hearing about Larki’s divorce. Less than five minutes into the conversation, Aunty says the best thing for Larki would be to “get straight back on the market”, and suggests signing her up to a list of single, divorced women who are looking for marriage at the local mosque.
“From a young age, we are taught to think about marriage as the ultimate goal,” Shah says. “You’re told, ‘You can’t do this until you’re married’, or, ‘Don’t do this because your in-laws won’t like it.’
“So, when women do get divorced, it becomes a scandal that is attached to them forever. A woman could have left her marriage 10 years ago, but when she’s spoken about, you’ll hear, ‘Oh, do you remember that aunty, you know the one who got divorced’. This is the mentality that Vitamin D is trying to interrogate.”
Fatima and her ex had met at work, and were still at the same company when their marriage broke down. While she wanted to get on with her new life, he had other ideas. “He wanted me to stay quiet,” she says.
“It was incredibly frustrating because I just wanted to move on, but every day I was going to work and pretending we were still together. That year was extremely difficult, and my mental health really suffered.”
Other South Asian Muslim women who spoke to Hyphen highlighted that the feelings of shame around divorce tend to be projected onto women more than men. That was the case for Sumaira, 40, from Oxford. Following her first divorce from an arranged marriage in 2019, her parents were desperate for her to marry again. “Their view was that because I had already been divorced, this time I should compromise on a lot of things and be prepared to settle for less,” Sumaira said.
Her second arranged marriage was to a man 12 years her senior, who became emotionally and physically abusive soon after the wedding. Even though this was also his second marriage, Sumaira says he would often remind her that she was divorced and that it made her less desirable.
“It was like divorce was a sin for women, but because he’s a man, he was clean,” she says. “He would also use it as a threat, because he knew I had already been divorced and I was scared of being in the same position again, so it gave him authority.”
Recognising the lack of help available to South Asian women going through divorce, Aruna Bansal set up the Asian Single Parents Network in 2011. The network offers practical and emotional support and has members across the UK.
According to Bansal, the stigma of divorce runs so deep that many women are reluctant to speak about it years later and many stay in abusive relationships for fear of how their family and communities will view them should they decide to leave. All who spoke with Hyphen for this piece asked to remain anonymous.
‘Getting people to talk about divorce is difficult, because they don’t want other people to know. We try to encourage people to share stories, and show people that you can come out the other side and make a new life for yourself.’
When Sumaira confided in her family about the abuse in her second marriage and said that she was thinking about leaving, most of the women advised her against it.
“They said, ‘We also go through a lot, but we still stay.’ My own sister told me that her husband would hit her sometimes, but that she was ‘surviving’ the relationship,” Sumaira says. “When I did decide to leave, I felt guilty. It felt like I was doing something wrong, because if my sister can bear all those things then maybe I should be able to as well?”
The consequences can be severe for women who do find the courage to leave. When Rukhsana, 44, from London, got divorced in 2014, she was ostracised by her community. “I wasn’t invited to weddings, engagements and I was told not to go to gatherings. My family would say to me: ‘What are you going to tell people?’”
Rukhsana, who is of Bangladeshi heritage, was disowned by her family for two years after she got married because they did not approve of her ex-husband, who is British Pakistani. When he became physically and financially abusive, she felt she couldn’t leave.
“When I confided in my family, they told me to go back to him,” she says. “To them, it was bad enough that I had married him in the first place, but if I was to leave him, it was going to be even worse.”
The marriage ended after her ex-husband had an affair and left.
“I’m now seen as the poster girl for why you shouldn’t marry outside your culture. People use me as an example among the wider family and community. They say, ‘She married outside and look what happened to her.’ People don’t realise how hurtful that is,” she says.
Rukhsana believes that her own experience reflects the widespread imbalance in the way men and women are treated following a divorce. “He got away with it scot-free,” she says. He was the one who abused me, he was the one who had an affair and left our two children. But even to this day, when I have an argument with my family, I still get it thrown in my face, ‘No wonder your husband left you.’”
While Sumaira separated from her husband earlier this year, she has decided not to pursue a legal divorce. “I’m not living with him and we have no relationship. But I can’t take that label of divorcee against my name again.”
In Vitamin D, Larki finally confronts the conflicting way that men and women are treated and the shame surrounding divorce in an impassioned monologue. “We are the product of generations of this ideology. A dutiful woman suffers in silence,” Larki tells the audience.
The play ends with her taking to the stage at an open mic night, where she has been selected to perform her own poetry. A neon sign that reads “to be happy” hangs behind her.
Some names have been changed to protect the privacy of interviewees.
Vitamin D is playing at Soho Theatre, London, until 21 September.
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