The ideal woman in Austen and Humsafar

Humsafar propagates an image of the ideal woman just like the ideal woman of  Austen's novels. Khirad of Humsafar bears a pretty strong resemblance to Elizabeth Bennett of Pride and Prejudice. Khirad like Elizabeth Bennett has her "khuddari" and her belief in rational love. But simply presenting these figures, the novel or drama could not have portrayed these characters as the ideal women. They had to be juxtaposed with a woman who was the exact oppositte of them in nearly every conceivable way. Enter Sara - the somewhat  Humsafar equivalent of Miss Bingley. 

Both Khirad and  EB come from the middle class, a class that is the ideal for both the genres (i.e. 19th century English novel and the present day Urdu Drama). Both of them try to act the feminist in the beginning but bow to the social pressure given time. But the feature that truly brings the two together is their control over their heart, body and minds. This is the feature that is of the utmost importance here. 

Now lets take Sara and Miss Bingley, they hail from the upper social class, a not so ideal class for women in the two genres to come from. They are shown as total snobs who are not the most loved creatures of the feminists out there and they continue to be so till the very end. Despite their consistency, these two creatures are shown as women who have no control over their passions which rule their heart, body and minds. They are defined by this lack of control that they have over their emotions and their choices. These are the women who are the cliched "hysterical" women.  They are shown as creatures to be pitied and hated but never to be emulated. 

The message that this juxtaposition conveys is that the ideal women portrayed in both these pieces of literature are those who are in control of themselves. I do not have a problem with this message, but what I do have a problem with the aforementioned ideal women. Both EB and Khirad are sorely lacking in many attributes that in my opinion every woman should have. To propagate them as the ideal woman is, in my opinion, wrong.