She did not feel too bad that her marriage was to take place on her 13th birthday, hardly a few months after she had attained puberty. Her elder sister was married when she was nine months old and had nearly choked to death on a wine cake shoved into her tiny mouth. And then, their husbands were not strangers. The elder sister married her paternal cousin, then a boy of 10. Our heroine (we shall call her Aban for ease of reference) was to be married to her maternal cousin, then a boy of 16. The elder one’s marriage was......