"Wedding, Pakastani Style: Restraint & Joy

From NPR's Along the Grand Trunk Road

In this sex-segregated celebration, women assemble on the rooftop and men gather across the street on another -- where they eat first. I find the groom cloistered in a sitting room of a neighbor's house, surrounded by male relatives. His aspirations on his wedding day are for children yet unborn.

I want to spend a lot of time with my children, give them a good education and maybe a little better life then my own," Shahzad says.

Pragmatism is also at work on these occasions, although it's out of public view. A formal contract awards Gul roughly $3,000 in gold, and 500 square yards of land, in case the marriage doesn't work.

But as giddy children swarm, and guests dine on simple Pakistani feast under color-splashed canopies, it is the promise of a joyful future, and the unbroken cycle of life that abides.