Love and marriage in Islam

[MoonChild]

I've been reading the threads on marriage (in various forms!), and reading a bit about what Islam says about the meaning of marriage... and I have a few questions.

It seems like, from the religious side, there is a high emphasis placed on mutual love and respect withing marriage, that men and women are expected to treat each other very well and that there is also an expectation of love and real passion in marriage. Divorce is a "bad thing" (although permissible), and adultery is harshly punished for either sex. Multiple marriage, while permitted, seemed to be primarily a mechanism to care for widows and children, rather than an indulgence for men, and men are expected to treat multiple wives absolutely fairly (nearly impossible).

This is my understanding of the expectations set down by the prophet.

On the other hand, culturally it is expected that young men and women are absolutely separated and not really even permitted to get to know each other before marriage. Many marriages are arranged, or based on fairly limited knowledge of each other.

Doesn't it seem like a bit of conflict? That the bride and groom are expected to have this loyal, passionate, respectful lifelong marriage with someone they barely know (if at all) before being committed to each other?
do you think that perhaps when the Kuran was set down that men and women had more freedom to make an "informed choice" of a spouse, and that the culture imposes new difficulties in making happy marriages? Or perhaps Allah has extraordinary expectations of his followers, that they be able to get along with, and be loving towards, whatever spouse is given them?

Maybe I misunderstand both the religion and the culture -
I'm just trying to figure this out :)

[Miss Naughty]

first of all thanx moony for distributing this thread..

i would like to tell u that the prophet (pace be uppon him) that before marriage the couple can see each other, and i think from the first sight u can feel if you can accept him/her as ur partner.. and as u believe of the first love sight i think its mostly the same thing.
and finally i just wanna say we dont choose ur family but we still love them.. what means, its not important to love the person before you marry him,the important thing is to be able to love them after that and I beleive you can know that if there is acceptence in that first meeting...

[Arabian Princess]

MoonChild, I would like to thank you for opening this thread. I think we should always place our thoughts here (both muslims and non-muslims) because this way we learn more. Thanx again.

This is a very nice topic you opened moonchild.
Well what Miss Naughy written touches part of what I want to say.
I would like to go through ur post a bit by bit to try to make the answeres understanable.


culturally it is expected that young men and women are absolutely separated and not really even permitted to get to know each other before marriage.

This is partly true and not true. The true part that we dont now each other before marraige the way the west couple know each before marraige. For example, we dont go out alone, we dont live togther and we dont sit togther in a locked room alone even.
But we are encouraged to know the other part before getting married. The man has to go and see the girl who he is going to get married and the woman has the right to see the man who she is going to get married to. We are allowed to sit and talk about what we are expecting from each other and so on. BUt ofcourse this has to be done when a person avaliable (since we are not allowed to sit with a man alone in a locked room)

Again this is not always the case, you can know a person who is ur classmate for example, your work mate or even a relattive and some feeling develope between both of you. The step is not to "get and know him" and then decide to get married. BUt, for the man to come and propse to ur family and so on you get married.


do you think that perhaps when the Kuran was set down that men and women had more freedom to make an "informed choice" of a spouse, and that the culture imposes new difficulties in making happy marriages? Or perhaps Allah has extraordinary expectations of his followers, that they be able to get along with, and be loving towards, whatever spouse is given them?


The Informed choice avaliable in Islam are basicly thorugh knwing certain crieteria that would make life possible for the two of you.
If you know a person is well mannered, quite religious (fears Allah) and the girl accepts him so what else she wants to know. ALthough you might disagree with me here that "love" should happen between both of them but love before marraige is not the answer of a successful marraige.
Many love storied ended with divorce and manny marraiges that started the our way ended with a very happy couple.
Islam asks a husband and wife to care for each other as they could after marraige. They accepted the marraige with no force so they must be ready to love thier partner as much as they can. Ofcourse, sometimes the heart just fail you and you would "hate" someone for no reason. If that "hate" inevitable then there is on answer but to leave each other although it is the last resort.

Allah does not expect you to love anyone, and this is exactly why you have to see the person you marry when he comes and proposes because there is indeed something called chemistry.

one this I beleive in, our way of marraige provide a good oppertunity for people "not pretty enough" to find a life partner. What I know that a "less pretty" adolcen girl could go into a perioed of depression because the other pretty girls could easly get the most popular guys at school but they cant. At least our way every girl will get a chance to be loved even if was after marraige :) This is my own theory please dont relate it Islam :)

Please if I misunderstod your questions please do ask me again.

[Wanderer]

Don't get the idea it's all too liberal in the West.

My first date in 7th grade was chaperoned - by her dad.

I wasn't allowed to be behind closed doors with my girlfriend in High School. Faith will not be behind closed doors with any boy in my house - mostly to protect the poor boy.

My plan is to pretend I can't stand her dating well dressed, polite, educated young men. Then she can rebel by dating them.

[MoonChild]

Thanks Naughty and Princess for you replies... I have one more question, do you think this is a good social system that results, mainly, in happy marriages? Culturally, do young people expect to be happy and in love with their new spouse, or are they just happy if you both get along and have mutual respect and treat each other well?

When I look at the history of marriage in the West, it seems like there are so many unhappy couples! Until fairly recently many marriages were arranged (particularly in the upper classes where marriage was more a contract between families for social and economic reasons than with any desire of the parents to make their children happy), even in lower classes and in early America the young man approached the father asking permission to court/marry the daughter etc.
Only recently (100 years?) have young people really had the freedom to choose each other for love, but since divorce was unacceptable (or illegal), if it didn't work out there were just lots of unhappy people married to each other and fighting. Now, only in the last 30-40 years has divorce become socially acceptable and "no fault" divorce legal (where you can get a divorce just because you want to, not because of adultery or spouse in jail). I think the rise in divorce rate in the West is because unhappy people CAN divorce, not because more people have bad marriages than before - before they were just stuck in them.

So in my culture, I see lots of unhappy people, they chose their spouse for love but then fell out of love or made a bad choice. I'm wondering if the "old ways" or the muslim ways of having one's family (presumably wiser and less swayed by youthful passion) choose, or at least influence the choice, of who you marry, really leads to more couples being happy their whole lives. Or not...

Or if our romantic notion of being happily, passionately in love with one person your whole life (and being able to find and identify that person in your 20's) is just unrealistic and that is why all the unhappiness and divorce. Sometimes it DOES happen but not for most people.

[IceTea]

I want to add something here about this topic, love can also happen after marrige. So it dosen't need to be before marraige where the two couples meet on daily basis for example, go out and have fun to love each other and then marry where they already exausted and love feeling and it become like normal. Also in Islam even if its arrange marraige they can still see each other before the agreement within Islam regulations and continue to see each other after the agreement which is called "khutba" and then get married.

[Arabian Princess]

Moon Child,
In Islam the girl and the boy should have no sexual or to some extent "romantic" relationship before marraige. When the time of marraige comes (a guy sometimes ask his mom to search for a good wife and the girl's dad was offered a proposal) the two tend to facinate this new experience. This facination tend to turn most of the time into love!!

you could say what if this facination could nto turn into love??? well ofcourse both the man and the woman could seek for divorce, which is although undesirable but possible. Sometimes things has to be weighted, love could be built out of respect (I think somhow the defenition of love would be differnt in both our cultures) when this love is built, two people could live togther happily.

To tell you one more thing, Islam is not aginst love at all. It as its own restriction for this love. Cousin marragies is allowed in Islam, so if a girl does meet her cousin regulary in family meetings for example and so does the boy then the answer is marraige. Islams answer for love is not to date for 2-3 years and then decide I dont love the person.

Maybe you will keep on woundering: HOW CAN TWO MAKE THEMSELVES LOVE EACH OTHER?
as I told you, the answer here is the differnt defintion of love in Oman (Islam) and (USA)

I am still enjoying this discussion, please if you still have some questions that I didnot answer them keep them coming :)

[Arabian Princess]

So Moonchild, still waiting for your comments :)

[Wanderer]

I told MoonChild that you are waiting for a reply.

[MoonChild]

Sorry AP it's getting hard to keep up... I'm so tired these days and ready for this baby to come (like that is going to make me less tired?! See, I'm not thinking straight ;)

You seem to be saying that if a boy and a girl don't know anything about sex before getting married, they will be fascinated by the new feelings and this will lead to love everlasting.

Well, the West has done some experiments on this and it doesn't work that way ;) Love and sex aren't the same - although a whole lot of people get them confused!

Anyway that's not really the point. I think what you mean by the "omani" definition of love is that if you are married to a decent, upstanding person that you respect, that respect can grow into love (because he/she is a good person).

I can agree with that to a point. Perhaps there are more men/women worthy of respect in Oman than in America... but here people date to get to know a prospective mate, or even live together thinking they will get married, and learn that the person is a liar or has a bad temper or only thinks of him/herself, or has some other quality that is not worthy or respect or of love.

Beyond that, I think in America at least (in the modern day) we DO have higher expectations of our spouse - we want to be "compatible" too - to have a special bond with them that is not "just" what you can generate from sorta kinda liking a decent guy. Seeking this kind of special relationship is risky in that it's rare (hard to fnid your soul mate), so either you search and search and never find anyone, or choose someone thinking you've found him, and find out you are wrong then want a divorce so you can keep looking (or stay but be unhappy).

So, I think I asked this question before, do you think the way of your culture results in more happy marriages? When you think of your friends and family, are the men and women truly happy, are they content, are they just "making do", or are they unhappy and wish they weren't with the other person? Or do people keep their feelings for their spouse private so you wouldn't be able to tell?

[Arabian Princess]

MoonChild,
First wish you all the best in the coming days, they might be difficult but am sure they would be one of the moments you would remmber forever :)


Well I would try to answer your question from experiences around me. Last year, me and other two of my cousins got married at the same perioed (end june - early August)
Two of those marraiges were arranged. The couple knew each other from family relations and they family did suggestion them for each other.

After one year, I see both of thier marraiges so successful!, I dont see content only but also love!! Ofcourse I cannot judge what happnes to them alone but this is generally what I see.

I cant conclude that ALL arranged marraiges end in love. I beleive that it is all fate that would make you live a happy marraige or not. Its your willingness to put all your effor to love the person or not.

You mentioned a good point there, in the west you mostly beleive that you wanna find the perfect person which is hard. No one is perfect. Everyone has thier flaws here and there. The most important thing is you work hard to overcome those differnce and this at the end would create love.

I do think that our way could result in a happy marraige if you want it to and could not result if you dont want to. Plus, because we beleive it is fate that created everything, you find them more content with thier spouse and gradually would love thier spouse more.

[MoonChild]

Originally posted by Arabian Princess
I do think that our way could result in a happy marraige if you want it to and could not result if you dont want to. Plus, because we beleive it is fate that created everything, you find them more content with thier spouse and gradually would love thier spouse more.

I think that's the heart of the matter :)

[Enjoy Ur Death]

hi

well this is really a good topic to know other cultures. that's why i want to ask moon shild, can u kindly define what does LOVE mean in USA ?