Polygamy and sisters’ distress
Abdul-Rahman Murphy of Practimate on Muslim men’s attitude to polygamy and the distress it causes sisters, who often find themselves reluctant to marry:
As my wife and I discussed this odd phenomenon of young, practicing, Muslim singles remaining single, I asked the stereotypically male question, “Why are there so many unmarried people here? You would think that with such a large quantity of actively-Muslim Muslims that there would be a high percentage of brothers and sisters that were hitched.”
My wife shrugged, “Not sure, and it’s not like they don’t want to get married, a lot of the sisters I’ve met are looking for a husband.” And then it dawned on me – the apple had dropped from Isaac’s tree and struck me on the head, pulling to the forefront of my mind, an amazing idea: “Why don’t the brothers and sisters here who are unmarried just marry each other!” It was so simple! I was on my way to becoming the matchmaker of the century, and had already began imagining my acceptance speech as the new president of Practimate.com.
“Pfft,” she said.
“Pfft? Is that such a terrible idea? We have two groups of unmarried people here, is it so hard to imagine that there would be some marriage-matches amongst them?”
“It’s possible – if the guys act like men.”
Whoa! Where was this coming from? The brothers I’d met during my time at the conference were, masha Allah, rising stars of dawah in America. The level of knowledge that was to be seen on the Y-chromosome side of the classroom was admirable, and I felt lucky to be a part of the group. Surely, brothers who were actively racing towards gaining knowledge from their teachers had passed the proverbial gate of maturation into manhood!
“Act like men? Huh?”
“The sisters would be interested, if they noticed any guys who would act mature. The main complaint I’m hearing on the girls’ side is that the guys aren’t acting like candidates that the girls would be interested in. For example, today when the shaykh mentioned the phrase ‘second wife’, the brothers started giggling and high-fiving like…boys! Just watch for the next couple of days and tell me what you think.”
More from me on the matter of polygamy here, but it’s depressing how the brothers can’t understand how disturbed sisters are at their joking on polygamy. (More: Ginny.)
Possibly Related Posts:
- On the Daniel Jou “virginity test” controversy
- It’s not just about cooking
- Muslims, parents and nursing homes
- On obscene generalisations
- Does polygamy cause violence?
