TASLIMA NASREEN (Bangladesh) story It's been seven years since I got married, and I still haven't had any children. My husband's relatives constantly nagged me about this: "What a sin we have committed by choosing a barren woman as our son's bride! How can I look people in the eye now? If he had married someone else, the house would be full of kids by now." They found flaws in everything I did. The food I cook is inedible; the laundry I wash is dirty; I don't know how to clean or keep house. I wasn't invited to weddings and family gatherings, as my presence could bring trouble. And when important guests came to the house, I was chased out into the kitchen like a dog. Such treatment left me in a constant state of melancholy. I sent a message to my parents asking them to come and take me home. Finally, my father and brother arrived. And they said right from the doorway: "This is your family now, and you must live here until you die. Remember, your paradise is under your husband's feet." So they left. I was shown to healers who removed the taint, exorcised from evil spirits and hung with amulets to cure me of infertility. Finally, one day, a real doctor from the hospital came and told me to take a lot of tests. "What other tests?" my husband asked. - Both spouses must pass infertility tests. "Will she have a baby after these tests?" Men don't need to be tested at all, " the husband grumbled. I convinced him to go to the hospital together. There they took my blood and urine for analysis, and my husband was taken to a separate room. When I asked him what they did to him there, he didn't answer. Ten days later, the results came back. God knows what was in them. The husband tore up the papers, exclaiming, " Nonsense!" "Why nonsense?" I asked. "It says here that I can't have children. Nonsense! Like I didn't know what was going on. Men my age come in five minutes, and I hold on for half an hour. And with such masculine strength, I'm not capable of having children?! I realiz ... Read more