Here Ye, O Woman?

What happens when a woman gets married? Well, there are smiles on all faces. But, wait. It is only for a couple of weeks. As months slip by confusion takes charge. No one knows where the newly married woman should live, and how should she relate herself to the husband’s family if she is required to live with them. She is perplexed. She doesn’t know whom to go for an emphatic reply. The smiling folks have disappeared. Some of them display a frown. The husband has wet eyebrows. As she discusses the issue with a variety of people, she gets a variety of recipes: “Adjust yourself,” says one. Or, “Well, this is the challenge of married life” quips another. “Be patient and act with wisdom,” another wit sings the line. The professor in social sciences tells her, “Well, I’m only an academician. Talk to a family counselor.”  The counselor has plenty of patience. Nice chap. He hears everything and understands everything. But he is short of solutions. The rest is OK with him. The woman has a strong feeling he is an idiot. In short, when she goes with questions, she is turned off with a sneeze. To her specific inquiry: What is she supposed to get, and what is she supposed to give, to the husband and his family? – the advisors all but consult stars. The practice in many social systems other than Islam is that with marriage a woman leaves her home – for good. In the Indian scene, the land of the sages, if we say she is cast out, with the parents secretly saying to themselves “good riddance”, it wouldn’t be far from the truth. (They had no idea what chagrin they will go through, the day they decided she wouldn’t be one of the 7 million fetuses that are aborted every year in India because they are female). The interesting thing is, when these “lucky to survive” women grow up, they ask the non-abortionist Muslims, “Why is the status of women so low in Islam?” Shoo. What a world.

In any case, once she leaves her home, and enters into the husband’s family, a woman in systems other than Islam is considered as belonging to the new family there onward. Her life and death are to be within its confines. Therefore, if she is not given shelter after the husband’s death in “a Muslim family,” then it is a good case of Islam’s prejudices against her! It is asked, “Why there aren’t any instructions in Islam to help her out?” This is what we meant when we wrote earlier, that first a system foreign to Islam is patched up onto it, a problem created which is not of its making, and then asked, “Why hasn’t the Islamic law made any provision for her?”

Religious authorities are quickly consulted. (They are not consulted at the time marriage discussions take place, when they might learn from the irrational mullahs that any money her parents are forced to hand down, is as lawful to the groom as pork). However, the Fatwa is cast against the divorced/ widowed woman: she cannot claim anything from her in-laws by right. Ah, another case of Islamic injustice to the fair sex, the mother of mankind, the weakling, the poor thing!

In the anxiety to blame Islam, stir up sentiments against it, and create hysteria among womenfolk, it never occurs to anyone how unreasonable it is to ask the in-laws to house a daughter-in-law in her own house. Who doesn’t know the differences that rule between a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law? Has there ever been harmony between the two? Wouldn’t it be planting strife to plant an otherwise unwanted person into a family? What kind of a solution is it that solves the problem of one woman at the cost of another woman’s peace?

Again, what are the chances that a woman will be happy in a family in which she is after all a stranger? That means, it is a solution in which not one woman is unhappy, but two: the mother in law, and the daughter in law herself. How about the husband between the two warring parties? He manages to remain equidistant from the two, in times of strife. To the disappointment of both, mother and wife, he thinks the fuss is over nothing. When peace doesn’t prevail, he acts ignorant of the problems, sits pretty and relaxes. Only, as he sips tea, he wishes he hadn’t got married in the first place.

However, in a joint family of the kind we are discussing, the problem is not limited to two individuals. The deceased husband might have a brother. He too gets married. Another woman is added to the family. This new person is a stranger to the mother-in-law, and a stranger to the sister-in-law. Have fun.

The absolute chaos that results when there are unmarried sisters aboard the ship is not an imaginary one. Look into some homes. Have more fun.

Don’t ask how the mother-in-law fares. Has she any rights? What more does she want after she has had a hearty meal over the leftovers? She is otherwise such a nuisance. Even the cartoonists make fun of her to everybody’s delight. Nobody ever talks of her rights. The women’s lib hasn’t done enough homework. The daughters in law team up among themselves and treat the mother-in-law like dirt. She is pariah in her own house. If, by chance her own husband dies, she inherits the house. She also inherits the daughters in law, and tons of trouble without the husband’s support. They live in her house, and await her death. How do you like that? Well, the Devil likes it if no one else. And his followers too. Sure they like it.

So, what kind of solution is it to ask a woman to live in the house of her in-laws? Whether in the life of the husband or after his death? Providing her material support, you say? What cliche is that? Come to your senses man.

Come to another scene. Add brothers in law to the cast. They are young. They are mischievous. The widowed sister in law is not related by blood. She is not unlawful to them. What’s likely to happen? The insinuations, the accidental touches, and other such things. But that’s only one part. Another is that she has to wash their dishes, clean the place after the lords have retired, and peep out into the street if somebody is looking, so she can empty the trash can. Providing her material support? Let’s change the topic.

Situations similar to the above ensue when the son-in-law is invited to move into the house of the father-in-law after marriage. (A measure resorted by some families when the parasite could not be identified before marriage). Similar confusion, loss of privacy, other bothersome things. Even if it is by choice, both husband and wife suffer in this unnatural setting. They cannot even have a meal of their choice.

So what’s the solution when disappointment gives place to sullenness, followed by melancholy and ending with frustration – for those women who live with the husband’s family in the same house? Suicide is one solution. Thousands of women in India commit suicide every year in search of a solution. But that’s not a good solution, if one might say. So, what’s a good one?

Well, why shouldn’t someone download solutions from every religious site on the Net, offering solutions to family and social problems – and compare? Ah! You didn’t find any? Well, if you didn’t find any, it is because there isn’t any. All you get is advice, good words, counseling. But laws? Clearly defined rights and duties? Click the mouse for something else.

In the Islamic system of life, a man is required to move out to his own house when he marries. For, the brothers in law are unlawful to a woman. She must not appear before them without hijab. How can she live with them? The Islamic law clearly states that it is a woman’s right to have her own private quarters, provided by the husband, of standards she was used to before marriage, where none but people of her choice can come in. What about the parents in law? Are they her parents? No. They are not. Her parents are those who sired her: the biological parents, and not the so-called “parents in law” – an English term, foreign to Islam, with all the connotations it carries foreign to it. Is she supposed to serve her in-laws? No. If she did, it would be out of charity. Is she required to cook for them? No. She isn’t. Do they have any rights on her? None. Does she have any duty to them? None. Does she have any rights on them? None. (Add “except out of charity” after every “none”).

Another situation. What happens when she is forced to share a house with one or both the parents in law, because they have nowhere else to go – perhaps because they are too old, and are, by Islamic law, the responsibility of the son?  The answer is clear. The son is required to house his parents separately (but not in old people’s home) and serve them as best as he can, involving his children also in the service. His wife is not bound to serve them. But, if he cannot afford separate quarters for his parents and another for himself and his wife and children, then, obviously, his wife has to share the house. But, in such an event she has her rights to her private apartments, which includes a kitchen, washroom and other basic amenities. She might live under the same roof, with the parents in law, but, her designated apartment is a “no go” area for others. Any interaction between her and the parents in law or others, is voluntary. She goes as a guest and receives them as guests. She doesn’t feel obliged to her parents in law for her housing. It is her husband’s duty to provide her an independent house. She is no burden on them, and they no burden on her.

Now, what happens to a woman if the husband dies? Here comes a point when the lawmakers of the secular world lose their heads and run into bushes looking for wonder drugs. The prescriptions betray contradictions. They say that when the husband dies, she should stay in the in law’s house? Why? Because, the poor thing needs material support. She is in tears. And the lawmakers are in tears. Fine! But what happens when she is divorced? The answer is, she should leave the house. Go where? Well, go anywhere. The real estate agent is around the corner. Now, only the woman is in tears. The lawmaker is handling another case.

The contradiction has not gone entirely unrecognized. So the Western lawmakers tried to act smart. They ruled that if the woman is divorced, the husband is to pay up regularly for her living cost. But, what happens after the third installment was duly paid? None arrived. How many times is the woman to knock at the court doors? Further, the hint to the males was, “don’t divorce.” So, their men don’t divorce. They make the life of their spouses miserable. She goes to the court and says, “For God’s sake, separate us.” The husband says, “I have no problems with her. I love her.” She pleads, “Free me, please.” They are separated. She gets nothing. She heaves a sigh. The man smiles. The jury lights his cigar. A day well spent.

The woman is glad at least on one account: She won the children’s custody. For her, they will be the only source of future smiles. The man is glad, she took them away. He didn’t want them anyway. Amicable solutions for all. Indeed.

Thus did West create single parent families. Millions of them. And, a false civilization built on falsehood can never cease to play its tricks. The West calls them single parent families, as if there are fifty percent families headed by men and fifty percent by women. Na. Most are headed by women. But that reality is covered under the cloak “single parent families.” Those women live with the children, work for them, cook for them, look after them, and when frustrated, try some marijuana.

Here is a good reason why the media has to portray Islam to women as a horrible religion. Many of them in their forties are just tired of their lives. They are looking for alternatives. They are saying, “Give meaning to our lives.” Let them not per chance discover meaning in quarters disapproved by those who think they own the minds and souls of their people.

So, what’s the Islamic solution? Where does a woman go when her husband dies. Well, the answer is, if she had been staying with the in-laws, she is not to be pushed out for one whole year. That’s the law. This gives her time to bear the shock of the husband’s death, evaluate the situation, and plan the future course. During this period she is entitled to full maintenance cost. She is also entitled to receive a share from the husband’s wealth. When leaving, she also gets back everything she brought with her: furniture and all. Finally, when leaving – after a year or more – she receives gifts: some clothes, some cash. Reasonable?

But where does she go ultimately? Well, to where she came from. To her parent’s home. Aren’t they the ones who sired her? But, when they accept her, is it simply a duty they are fulfilling? Yes and no. Yes because that’s the Islamic law. A father, a son, a brother, an uncle, a grandfather, one or all of them are bound by Islamic laws to materially support a woman from her birth until marriage, and, if divorced or widowed, then, until a remarriage, or death. They have to provide her the same quality of life that they themselves enjoy.

And, “no” to the above question, because, by nature, the parents are responding to the call of love. Coming back, especially after a divorce, she may not be welcome, kind of open arm reception. But, even if an irritant (worst come worst), she is after all their child. Even anger towards the daughter has a sugar bottom of love. The bitter pills have a sweet seed. Right?

Look at the battle-grounds. There are none. The constant fight between two women. None. Mother and daughter are in perfect harmony. The winks and the insinuations? None. There are only brothers around. How about the ever irritant sisters in law. They are in another house. This house has only sisters. Does the daughter await her mother’s death? You must be a lunatic. And children? Well, they are the father’s/paternal grandfather’s responsibility until their puberty. Boys live with her until at least the age of eight, and girls until puberty (although all expenses are paid by the father/grandfather).

Now is the time to compare the situation of a divorced woman or a widow in the house of the in-laws with that of hers in her parent’s house. No comparison.

That’s Islam.