DEO: Is this your name? Me: Yes.

DEO: And is this your father’s name? Me: Yes.

DEO: Are you married? Me: Yes.

DEO: Sorry, you need to get your ID changed, then get a passport made with your husband’s name on it.

Me: What? DEO: Your husband is your legal guardian. Me: Yes. So?

DEO: So all your documents must identify you as “Wife of” instead of “Daughter of”. Me: Wait, what? I have to get my identity changed and base it on my husband that I’ve been married to for three years, and not my father, who’s been my father for 30 years, and will continue to be my father until the end of time.

DEO: Yes, but you’re married now. Me: Yes, but what if next year I’m married to someone else? Are you telling me that I’ll have to again go and get my identifiers changed to show my new husband’s name on my CNIC and passport?

DEO: Uhhh... kya kar saktein hain. That’s the law.

Right off the bat let me say I’m not some misguided feminist who has issues with stating a man’s name as my identifier on my documents. That isn’t discrimination against women, it is basic common sense – after all, my brother puts a man’s name on his documents, too. Until recently, that name, our father’s name, was the same for both me and my brother.

Now, however, while my brother retains his once-issued ID card forever, I must have mine changed. “So what’s the problem?” you ask. “Quit whining and get it done; it’s just a one-time thing.”

Or is it? Let’s ask Farheen K, 34, management executive at a textile company. Married six years ago, divorced last year. After her marriage she took time off from work to stand in line at the various government offices to file the paperwork needed to change her identity card (husband’s name and permanent residence). After her divorce she took time off work to stand in line at the various government offices to change her identifiers back to her father’s name and her father’s address.

Or how about Sabah T. The university student and her cousin were married in a nikah ceremony. Immediately afterwards the young man left for his home in the US, while she applied to join him by the end of the year.

Eight months after the nikah, the marriage was dissolved. “I had to go through hell and back,” says the soft-spoken student, “first with the whole marriage fiasco, then with getting my ID cards changed twice.”

A second marriage is being arranged for her, and not surprisingly, what she dreads most is having to apply for yet another ID card. “Other people flash credit cards,” she laughs dismally. “I have ID cards that remind me of the worst time in my life.”

If there is any logical sense behind this requirement of needing a husband’s name on CNIC and passports, I fail to see it. And I’m not the only one. Father of two, Shahid says, "Father’s name is the best option in all ID documents! Thank God men's IDs don't depend on their wives, otherwise for some men the space wouldn't be enough!"

Amina, married to a foreign national, says, “Even my passport shows who I'm married to, and he has no Pakistani NIC! I could have given Salman Khan's name for all the difference it made!"

Editor and journalist, Kiran, says, “It's a cultural thing that messes with Pakistani women. Islam says you don't have to change your last name.”

It’s true. Arab women do not change their names after marriage, and it makes sense not to. People can start their lives joined to one person, and end it joined to another.

Spouses can die; the surviving widow(er) can remarry. Divorce is nothing new. Death has been around since forever, divorce laws have been in place for more than 1400 years.

And where are we?

Standing in line at NADRA, because now we are married.

Which makes one wonder; what if Hollywood legend, Elizabeth Taylor, was Pakistani? Married eight times to seven different husbands, she’d probably be living at her local NADRA office!