page_title: Begum Rokeya
section_title: Marriage
hierarchical_section_title: Begum Rokeya / Marriage
caption_attribution_description: English: Begum Rokeya with her husband Sakhawat Hossain
context_page_description: Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, commonly known as Begum Rokeya, was a Bengali feminist thinker, writer, educator and political activist from British India. She is widely regarded as a pioneer of women's liberation in South Asia.
  She advocated for men and women to be treated equally as rational beings, noting that the lack of education for women was responsible for their inferior economic position. Her major works include Matichur, a collection of essays in two volumes expressing her feminist thoughts; Sultana's Dream, a feminist science fiction novella set in Ladyland ruled by women; Padmarag depicting the difficulties faced by Bengali wives; and Abarodhbasini, a spirited attack on the extreme forms of purdah that endangered women's lives and self-image.
  Rokeya held education to be the central precondition of women's liberation, establishing the first school aimed primarily at Muslim girls in Kolkata. She is said to have gone from house to house persuading the parents to send their girls to her school in Nisha. Until her death, she ran the school despite facing hostile criticism and social obstacles.
context_section_description: Rokeya married at the age of 18, in 1898 to 38-year-old Khan Bahadur Sakhawat Hussain. He was an Urdu-speaking deputy magistrate of Bhagalpur (a present-day district of Bihar state). He earned his bachelor of agriculture degree from England and was a member of Royal Agricultural Society of England. He married Rokeya after the death of his first wife. As a liberal, he encouraged Rokeya to continue learning Bengali and English. He also encouraged her to write, and on his advice, she adopted Bengali as the principal language for her literary works.
caption: Rokeya with her husband, Sakhawat Hussain (1898)
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