Otherwise the bride would almost certainly have been the victim of an honor killing. From the Gulf Daily News, with thanks to EPG:
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani doctors Amnat and Ghulam Mustafa are on the run, in fear of their lives, for falling in love and getting married.Hundreds of women fall victim to so-called “honour killing” by male relatives every year in deeply conservative, rural Pakistan for marrying without their families’ consent, thereby being deemed to have brought disgrace on their family.
Amnat fears she would meet that same fate if she returned to her home in Sindh province in the south of the country.
“My brothers have threatened to kill me and my husband,” 44-year-old Amnat said.
“There is no guarantee for my life if I go home,” the visibly shaken woman said as her husband, Ghulam Mustafa, looked on.
“The main condition of my brothers is that I should get a divorce from my husband if I want to go home but I will never do that.”
The couple’s predicament highlights a major dilemma faced by Pakistan in reconciling centuries-old tribal traditions with modern-day values as President Pervez Musharraf tries to project the country as a moderate, progressive Muslim nation.
More than 4,000 people, the majority of them women, have been killed in the name of honour across Pakistan since 1998, according to government officials.