Aisha’s nieces and nephews have a phrase for the life she’s built: “Doing an Auntie Aisha.” The 45-year-old from Oxfordshire has become an example in her family of a different kind of future, one without marriage. “My parents were brilliant — they were kind, caring, loving. We weren’t an affluent family, but there was a lot of love,” she says. Raised by a feminist mother and a doting father “whose daughters were his pride and joy”, Aisha never felt pressured to follow tradition.