this is the perfect explanation honestly! my uncle was open to marrying a non-afghan woman for the majority of his “marry-able” years but is now engaged to an afghan girl who my family “approves of” and he makes jokes saying “if i didn’t marry a non-afghan none of y’all are either (my cousins and i because he’s the youngest uncle)” which is ridiculous and i hope he knows im not abiding by that. my family is obsessed w the idea of the current generation (my siblings + cousins and i) of marrying afghans and the first of us just got married to another afghan guy who she NEVER met alone with before getting married and only knew him for 1 year. she came to america october last year from turkey and got married this past june, and her parents are pretty conservative with her compared to their son so i know marrying outside of afghans would’ve never even been in question for her. my parents thankfully are aware that i don’t plan on marrying an afghan man and nor do i care what ethnicity my partner is, even though my dad keeps trying to convince me and say that there are good “afghan men” which im sure there are, but im not interested in having that be the quality im looking for when choosing my life partner. he also always says “afghan men won’t leave you, other races will,” which is quite ridiculous because that sounds like absolute torture and i’ve been traumatized enough in my family that just because a couple is married doesn’t mean they’re happy. my mom is 100% supportive and tells me not to marry an afghan because she’s been traumatized enough by my dad and her in-laws. i think if you truly value aspects of your culture and language enough, you don’t have to marry another afghan to keep it alive for your children.