Rights are meaningful only when paired with responsibility. My so-called sister speaks loudly and proudly of her claims, privileges, and rights, yet conveniently omits the duties that accompany them. To assert rights without acknowledging responsibilities is not fairness, it is imbalance and in ALLAH’s court, extremely unjust.
I have carried out every duty that could possibly fall within my role and beyond, without boasting about rights, ensuring her needs, comforts, and opportunities were always provided, even while being unemployed. These were not mere favours, they were deliberate acts of care and responsibility, regardless of being thirteen years her junior. Only to have had her benefit fully from what was supposed to have been shared justly by our mother. To speak of rights while ignoring the responsibilities that sustain them is to disregard the principle of justice.
Rights cannot belong to one and duty to only the other. One cannot reap all benefits while dumping the weight of responsibility entirely onto the other. Equity is only real when both coexist.
True equity demands balance. If all rights are hers, then all duties should have been recognised as hers since mom’s passing. The benefits she has enjoyed, from care, guidance, and provision, did not appear by chance, they were the result of effort and responsibility. Rights without duties are hollow, fairness without accountability is meaningless.
I did the best I could as a younger daughter who claimed no rights, just did the duty. I showed up when she failed to, I calmed what she corrupted, I comforted a broken-hearted mother on her dying bed. My duty has been fulfilled without going on about my rights.
So, who was short-changed after all?
