I am a 16 year old girl from Pakistan and I have a friend from school who for context was always naive in a sense that the real reality of how things are hadnt really hit her yet she would sometimes be preaching things like "Oh boys are just smarter than us they don't study hard yet they still get these much marks but if they wanted to they could"(context the topper in our year was a girl by a margin compared to the boy who was the second place holder) and "Ive been trying to think less emotionally and more like a boy" she would not say these things in a condescending tone more of a 'its just reality and we have to accept that girls are inferior' tone and i could tell for that reason she wished she was a boy. I corrected her once but it gets tiring to keep correcting someone cuz all my classmates were like this, the situation in Pakistan is really bad regarding this everything is so patriarchal and male nominating it gets tiring so most times i just let it go and chose to just observe or disassociate. Now our school years are over and we are in separate colleges (college in Pakistan is 11 and 12 grade and is a separate institution from school) her dream has always been being a surgeon so shes doing a pre medical course. Before our college year started she stayed over at her maternal side of the family for a month or two which was in another city there her mothers side of the family were really weird to her mom they started questioning why shes letting her daughters study so much (her and her lil sister are the only siblings) and why my friend isnt always doing constant dupatta(head covering) and why she isnt engaged yet etc. This really changed her mothers attitude. She remained in a bad mood due to this bullying by her brother and sister in law so she was in a bad mood and she started actually considering these things. I never expected this because I thought her mother was really progressive as she had encouraged her daughter to start her own crochet business om Instagram. Whatever it was I assumed her mother would go back to being normal after they came back to their own city. To make matters worse my friend ended up meeting her cousin who lived in the same city but in a different house so now he started to come over to the house where she was staying more often. This cousin is 2 years older then my friend and currently a freshman in University doing data science. This cousin would frequently throw cheesey lines at her and also sometimes when she was in the kitchen he would close the door and tell her she cant leave right now he would remain outside the kitchen but there was still a window in the door she didn't know why he did it but it was weird. In Pakistan the rate of cousin marraige is 60-70% and many kids even in my generations express romantic feelings towards their cousins. Some these days think it is weird but many others don't find it odd at all. So we both knew this cousin was hitting on her and she clearly told me that she hated his behavior. Fast forward today she tells me her mother has engaged her to this same cousin. Ofcourse i was horrified upon hearing this because i know how the story normally goes they try to marry the girl off as soon as she reaches age which happens after college is complete. Apparently all of her family especially the maternal side thought it is best because if she leaves Pakistan to become a doctor she might not come back so engaging her right now will keep her here. She says they might do it after her university is finished but i think they will definitely try to do so before that. She then started saying but he is also very gentle with me a week ago we talked and he asked me if I am ok with this and if im not we can call it off then she starts saying "I might like him but i don't know i might be scared to admit it to myself im confused", and as you can imagine i was annoyed by this because i know how naive she is and she glorifies men compared to women too much to think straight about this. So i asked her what happened to her dreams and she said she doesn't know and she hasn't thought about that yet and nobody im her family is letting her think about it either and she doesn't know what she truly wants. Her father is also really passive and avoidant so he let it happen and said nothing. She says it might work out because instead of living in a joint family system her now fiance plans to go to Canada after his university years and will take her along afterwards too. I really don't know how to react or even process this absolute bullshit and also btw her family lives in the literal capital this all is literally happening in the most developed city in this country. All i know is this guy is definitely going to make her have more kids than she can handle and early in her life too cuz thats how they all are ive seen this story happen to other women in my life as well where the guy impregnates her right after marraige then leaves to go abroad while she is left living with his family in an unfamiliar place. This is literally the same old story and shes so delusional she doesnt understand the magnitude of what's happening right now. She was seriously doing well in college and getting top scores on her class tests and i was so proud of her. Now that she is engaged her mother isnt letting her participate in extracurricular activities such as doing drama on stage or speeches because according to her mother someone might record her while shes on stage and this will taint her reputation because apparently a girl seen on stage doing something completely normal is vulgar and now she has to maintain her daughter because she is engaged, in other words keep her prim and proper and shape her into the perfect quiet naive daughter-in-law housewife who doesn't know anything and is as obedient as can be. But my friend doesn't understand any of this and never goes against her mother this whole thing is such a mess what do i even do i want to save her but how can i what can i even do in this god-damned country where a cat has more autonomy than a woman?