Congratulations are in order for Malala Yousafzai, who has confirmed in an Instagram post that she is married. “Today marks a precious day in my life. Asser and I tied the knot to be partners for life. We celebrated a small nikkah ceremony at home in Birmingham with our families. Please send us your prayers. We are excited to walk together for the journey ahead.”
The girls’ education activist, University of Oxford graduate, and youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner in history previously revealed her misgivings around marriage in the July 2021 issue of British Vogue. “I still don’t understand why people have to get married,” she told Sirin Kale. “If you want to have a person in your life, why do you have to sign marriage papers, why can’t it just be a partnership? My mum is like… ‘Don’t you dare say anything like that! You have to get married, marriage is beautiful.’”
Malala, whose parents had what she describes as “an arranged love marriage”, did hint that the experience of watching her university friends settle down had gradually opened her mind to the prospect. “Even until my second year of university,” she said, “I just thought, ‘I’m never going to get married, never going to have kids—just going to do my work. I’m going to be happy and live with my family forever. I didn’t realise that you’re not the same person all the time,” she continued. “You change as well and you’re growing.”
This article was originally published on British Vogue.
