Andrea Useem
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07:35:20 am on June 10, 2008 | # | |
Time to consider making it okay for Muslim women to even consider marrying a non-Muslim guy. This InFocus article, A Few Good Men, raises some important issues (even if the journalistic standards are not high.) but doesn’t mention the fiqh question — how muslim men can marry “out” but muslim women can’t — and how that contributes to the current “marriage crisis.” Question for you: Is it better for a Muslim woman to remain unmarried her whole life, or to find a non-Muslim man and have a chance at a happy married life?
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razib 10:51 am on June 10, 2008 | #
i read the article. isn’t really specific to muslim women from what i can see
seems like general female issues if you are approaching 30 and are on a professional track. unlike other religious traditions a slight excess of american muslims are male as opposed to female (probably has to do with male-biased conversion among black muslims and male weighting among immigrants). see
http://religions.pewforum.org/portraits
Tariq Nelson 12:11 pm on June 10, 2008 | #
I don’t think that it is a matter of someone making it permissible. In all likelihood, more and more Muslim women will pursue that option regardless of who makes it ok.
Muse 1:16 pm on June 10, 2008 | #
how does one “make this ok” anyway?
Willow 1:33 pm on June 10, 2008 | #
One gets a fatwa from Sheikh ul Nice Cars of the Unbelievers.
I can only really see this taking off in the west. In the ME the religion of the husband/father in a family makes a huge legal difference in the way divorce works, inheritance is divided, etc. (In Egypt it isn’t even legal for a Muslim woman to marry a non-Muslim. Thabet and I were talking about this the other day.)
Here’s another question though: how many people would even consider marrying outside their own particular sect? (Sunni, Shi’a, Sufi, Ahmadi, etc etc) Or if you’re already married, could you see yourself supporting your children if they wanted to marry outside your sect?
Straw poll.
I’d personally be fine if any potential Palestinian-Egyptian-Franco-Germanic Sunni kids I were to have wanted to marry Trinidadian Shi’ites if the Trinidadian Shi’ites were good honest people. Clearly we’re a mixed bag already; the more the merrier.
razib 1:36 pm on June 10, 2008 | #
“Here’s another question though: how many people would even consider marrying outside their own particular sect? ”
bashar assad is married to a sunni. many of the people in iraq are from “mixed” Marriages.
Willow 1:53 pm on June 10, 2008 | #
Because Bashar Assad the socialist dictator definitely had religious compatibility in mind when he picked out his wife.
The upper crust doesn’t count; that’s all politics and money. I’m talking about ordinary proles like you and me.
Seriously, anybody know any mixed Sunni-Shi’ite couples? I’ve literally never met one in my life. (Including among the Iraqis I know.) I know a few Muslim-non-Muslim couples but no Sunni-Shi’ite ones. Which isn’t to say it’s impossible–at all–but I do find it interesting that intersect marriages are in a way a less comfortable topic than interfaith ones.
I’m not talking ‘a Hanbali marries a Shafa’i’ stuff here; I mean the big sects. I ask because with the communal violence in Iraq and the growing influence of Iran I know several Sunni states in the ME are making it increasingly legally and socially difficult to be a Shi’ite.
Muse 2:03 pm on June 10, 2008 | #
I know of two desi couples from my parents generation who are mixed Sunni/Shia, though I’ve never heard of Sunni-Ahmadi (I wouldnt be surprised if it happens in Pakistan though, after much family squabbles ofcourse). Marrying outside the sect for my kids would be fine with me (at least into a Shia family, never thought about other sects), and I wonder how much control I would have on their choices anyway.
razib 2:14 pm on June 10, 2008 | #
“though I’ve never heard of Sunni-Ahmadi”
family friends are mixed in that manner (bangladeshi-pakistani american couple). the woman converted to ahmadism though. both were raised in the USA, met in college.
Willow 2:22 pm on June 10, 2008 | #
I’ve threadjacked Andrea’s post, so I feel like I should answer the actual point she raised: I think it depends on the woman. Obviously if she’s a ‘high holiday’ Muslim (cooks a nice side of lamb on Eid, gives up beer for Ramadan), religion should never have been a marital issue in the first place…we need to give up this chauvanist idea that a woman (and her body) ‘belongs’ to Islam even if she doesn’t practice and is ambivalent in belief. Because that has nothing to do with religion either–that’s regular old tribalism.
I question whether a woman who is really devout could marry both outside her culture and outside her religion and be happy. (Culture is implicit in the question ’should Muslim women be allowed to marry out’ because a man from a Muslim culture who doesn’t practice is still considered a Muslim by most other Muslims.) To be perfectly frank I know far more horror stories than success stories when it comes to intercultural/interreligious marriages. Again, that doesn’t mean that they can’t work or should be prohibited. But they are damn difficult. So difficult that I have to believe it’s easier to find someone within your own religio-culture with whom you might have issues than it is to marry someone outside–with whom you are *guaranteed* to have issues.
aziz 5:10 pm on June 10, 2008 | #
I don’t see it as a threadjack - more of a threadvolution
To answer Andrea’s question I don’t see why any muslim woman should have to choose between such stark alternatives. But suppose that these were indeed truly the only alternatives; then the answer comes down to the simple question of what is more important to the woman, Islam or happiness (and one might argue that if these two things are in contention, then she has other problems to consder resolving before marriage complicates her life further).
I think that communities have a right to self-preservation, so social pressures that dissuade people from marrying outside the gates is simply a survival strategy. as long as no individuals is forcibly prevented from walking away, then why not have orthodoxies? As Willow points out, someone whose faith is important to them is going to gravitate towards someone of like mind anyway, for simple reasons of shared values.
To answer Willow’s question, marrying outside my community (Bohra) was simply not an option. Not to say that I dont have friends in my community who did not mary outside, but the clear emphasis in our community is to perpetuate our language and culture, so any Bohra for whom these things are important is simply not going to be interested in outsider marriage. Usually, if it does happen, then theres a conversion involved (though of varying levels of conviction) simply to smooth the interface over.
As far as my kids, If I raise them as I was raised I hope it wont be an issue. I cant ever see myself refusing my children love and support regardless of what mistakes they might make, but if they do go “astray” I am not going to be heavily invested, emotionally speaking, either. I would see it as a failure of my own in terms of parenting, should it happen. Culture needs to be, well, cultured.
razib 6:02 pm on June 10, 2008 | #
“To be perfectly frank I know far more horror stories than success stories when it comes to intercultural/interreligious marriages.”
horror is too strong a word for me, but i think this is correct. common values and background are definite bonuses (my fiance and i are both atheists, i don’t think if we disagreed on that sort of question we’d be as comfortable with each other).
I think that communities have a right to self-preservation, so social pressures that dissuade people from marrying outside the gates is simply a survival strategy.
depends. some muslims in india have encouraged marriage of men to hindu women, right? why? because the children are assumed to be won for islam. that’s the christian view expressed in the letters of st. paul, christian women with pagan husbands were enjoined to remain with their husbands because of the example they might set, and hopefully their husbands would be won over. both strategies have their ups & downs.
razib 6:04 pm on June 10, 2008 | #
But suppose that these were indeed truly the only alternatives; then the answer comes down to the simple question of what is more important to the woman, Islam or happiness
i would have agreed with you a few years ago. but honestly now i’ve updated my views of how people can be religious, based mostly in reading and interaction with people who deviate from what i would think was consistent or coherent. after all, i’m assuming you would be hesitate recommending a woman who converts to islam within a marriage to automatically divorce his husband because she can’t be muslim unless she does, right?
Andrea Useem 8:03 pm on June 10, 2008 | #
Love the threadvolution. I think you’re exactly right Aziz, I’ve created an exaggerated dichotomy of fiqh v. happiness (not unlike torture v. the ticking time bomb.) So maybe it’s not relevant. But certainly when I’m on the phone with my MANY unmarried 30-something Muslim-women friends, I find myself thinking, and saying, “Well, what about a non-Muslim guy?” I agree also with Willow, that anecdotally marrying “out” brings its own problems. (Unless you’re a convert, right? In which case, you’re basically still marrying in the non-Muslim culture of your past. I have two convert friends who are happy with their non-Muslim husbands) I also agree with Tariq: it’s not about “making it okay” to marry non-Muslims. Change comes not from fiqh scholars but from people making on the ground choices.
Willow 8:49 pm on June 10, 2008 | #
Horror is definitely a strong word though ‘horror story’ is such a trope by now that I used it automatically.
I think in the US we like to put a rosy, cheery spin on intercultural/interreligious relationships of all kinds…it’s a good natured optimism born of the melting pot. In theory, it’s all about sharing and growing and soforth. Which is awesome, but speaking from experience the day-to-day of a true intercultural or interreligious marriage (ie, each spouse had minimal exposure to the other spouse’s culture/religion before marriage) can be exhausting and brutal. It takes a very big love to get through it, and a great deal is lost–not shared and grown but lost–on both sides along the way. I think 9 times out of 10 the energy of both people is better spent elsewhere.
However, if you can shed your baggage and worm your way into that 10%, it changes the way you see the world. I think I’d be a very small person without my marriage. Then again, we did have religion in common, although as soon as one says that with confidence one discovers just how much culture religion comes bundled in.
aziz 9:05 pm on June 10, 2008 | #
What was that quote from Sleepless in Seattle? “Marriage is hard enough without bringing such low expectations into it.” Dunno, it seemed relevant =)
null 12:41 am on June 11, 2008 | #
Finding partners for educated muslim women is increasingly becoming in other muslim societies too.
Living in India, parents are finding it increasingly difficult to find suitable matches for thier children despite newspaper classifieds and internet matrimony sites like shaadi.com
I doubt that the orthodox fiqhi position would change
http://seekingilm.com/archives/338
bdr 1:56 am on June 11, 2008 | #
I’d say the solution lies more in trying to fix our current system before trying to revolutionize it.
I think the problem has more to do with a broken/non-existent courting system, esp one not one suited to American Muslims.
And as Razib pointed out, this is a problem for professional, educated women in general-but obviously it gets exacberated when you don’t even have a courting system in place.
On another note, how does the tendency of seeking ‘traditional wives’ and ‘non-Muslims’ jive, or is this talking about two totally separate tendencies:
“While these women work on their personal goals, young Muslim men appear to give up on them and marry from “back home” or marry non-Muslims, making the pool of suitors even smaller.”
Either way, some way or another it’s the Muslim women getting screwed, and we’re probably going to see the coming of a large spinster generation.
» Sometime ago, Aziz wrote in a comment: … Talk Islam 6:08 pm on June 24, 2008 | #
[...] Sometime ago, Aziz wrote in a comment: I think that communities have a right to self-preservation… [...]