{"id":1441,"date":"2010-12-03T10:25:42","date_gmt":"2010-12-03T06:25:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=1441"},"modified":"2010-12-03T10:26:23","modified_gmt":"2010-12-03T06:26:23","slug":"is-an-arranged-marriage-the-answer-to-my-prayers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-society\/is-an-arranged-marriage-the-answer-to-my-prayers\/","title":{"rendered":"Is an arranged marriage the answer to my prayers?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cLove just happens\u201d is a romantic notion that has a strong influence on our modern ideas of relationships. Consider some of the myths that inform our views on marriage and love.<\/p>\n

Marriage is Cinderella\u2019s only escape route from domestic drudgery, and then only if she looks attractive and glamorous. No wonder women feel a pressure that marriage will free them from social oppression, and that they must at all times look beautiful. Sleeping Beauty\u2019s liberation is even more frustrating as she must lay passively until the prince comes to free her.<\/p>\n

By contrast, arranged marriages are a pro-active approach to the issue of finding a spouse, where the community, the family and the individual work together to locate someone who will make a good life partner. It\u2019s hard enough to find someone special, why not get as much help as possible? No need to wait helplessly for princes to chop their way through dense forests, or fairy godmothers to magic up sparkly shoes and horse-drawn carriages. Control over the search for that partner who will complete you is returned entirely to you \u2013 the individual \u2013 and the people who know you best and care about you the most are your cheerleaders \u2013 your family, and your close community.<\/p>\n

It is worth digressing for a moment here to point out that the pivot of the arranged marriage process are the two individuals searching to get married. The direction and final choice \u2013 whatever the reasons \u2013 are theirs alone. Those around the individuals are guided by their choices and desires as to the kind of person that they want. Forced marriages are wrong.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s another worrying subtext to the fairy stories and film fantasies \u2013 that the woman is only an adjunct to the man\u2019s success. She only gains status by being attached to him. Even the recent announcement of the wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton has a hint to it that she has now achieved something \u2013 because she is engaged to a Prince, rather than bringing her own merits to the marriage.<\/p>\n

One of the things I describe in my book \u201cLove in a Headscarf,\u201d<\/a> is the journey to understand the Islamic principles described in the Qur\u2019an that men and women are created from a single soul and that they are made in pairs. They find contentment and love in each other, and an understanding of the Divine through marriage. The analogy of a pair suggests that both the man and the woman are essential to the equation, and both are required to maintain harmony and balance. The woman is not an afterthought.<\/p>\n

We can go a step further and say that the same applies to the way that men and women interact at a wider social level. Only by acting as a pair \u2013 where both are valued and integral to the other, after all one half of a pair is useless \u2013 can we achieve social harmony. There are two conclusions from this. First, Islam has a strong blueprint for gender relations. This might come as a surprise to many readers, since our news and media coverage is at pains to highlight how oppressed Muslim women are. Yes, it\u2019s true that Muslim women do suffer a great deal, but this is more to do with culture and patriarchy than Islam. What we need is a return to Islam\u2019s original Qur\u2019anic egalitarian notion of gender: that men and women are created from a single soul.<\/p>\n

Second, society has a vested interested in creating and nurturing strong marriages. Again, it is worth noting that under Islamic law if a marriage is coerced then it is not valid at all \u2013 it simply never existed. And it might be even more surprising to learn that the marriage contract is initiated by the woman so that it is clear she has engaged in the liaison of her own free will. That simple rules such as these are not observed is a matter of cultural oppression, rather than anything wrong with the arranged marriage system or the Islamic approach to love.<\/p>\n

My own journey to find love was one that was at once hilarious and perilous. That I did it a different way from that you might expect from a modern Western woman \u2014 and a feminist of religion at that \u2014 makes it an unusual story. But it is one in which you might be surprised to find the universal themes that pervade all of our searches for love: humour, heartbreak and humanity.<\/p>\n

<\/em>Click here to read an excerpt from Shelina Zahra Janmohamed\u2019s new book, \u201cLove in a Headscarf<\/a>,\u201d a memoir of growing up as a Muslim woman.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SHELINA ZAHRED JANMOHAMMED: Arranged marriages are a pro-active approach to finding a spouse, where the community, family and individual work together to locate someone who will make a life partner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":1442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,5],"tags":[2884,2883],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1441"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}