Marriage is the holy legal tie between man and woman through which they share the same life and reciprocate definite rights and obligations. God has passed the law of matrimony so as to keep humankind on this earth and keep the earth constructed and prosperous.
“Marry the single people among you and the righteous slaves and slave-girls. If you are poor, Allah will make you rich through His favor; He is Bountiful and All-knowing (24:32).”
“His creating spouses for you out of yourselves so that you might take comfort in them and His creating love and mercy among you re evidences (of the truth) for the people who (carefully) think (30:21).”
The Prophet (s) said: “The most favorable thing to Allah that is ever constructed in Islam is marriage.” ( 1 )
“He who gets married wins the half of his religion. Hence, he should fear Allah in questions regarding the other half.” ( 2 )
“Marriage is my custom; therefore, he who rejects my custom is not belonged to me.” ( 3 )
“Get married, for I will take pride in your great numbers on the Day of Resurrection. The immature fetus, even, will stop on the door of Paradise saying angrily, ‘unless my parents will be with me, I refuse to be in Paradise.’” ( 4 )
“The two-rakaa prayer offered by the marrieds is preferred to the night worship and the fasting of the bachelors.” ( 5 )
“The evilest dead are the bachelors.” ( 6 )
Imam as-Sadiq (a) said: “A two-rakaa ( 7 ) prayer offered by the marrieds is preferred to a seventy-rakaa prayer offered by bachelors.” ( 8 )
1. Advantages of Marriage
Because of the great variety of merits of marriage, many texts confirm persistently on it by way of awakening the desires and warning against its negligence. Marriage is the only means by which righteous progeny is gained. Through sons, fathers feel dignity, power, extent of existence, good reputation, and great rewarding of God.
2. Benefits of Marriage
Marriage achieves chastity and immunity against corruption. From this cause, the punishment of the marrieds who commit fornication is stoning to death, because they are immunized by marriage and they despise the holiness of the honors and dignities.
3. Results of Marriage
Marriage secures easeful subsistence, tranquility, and freedom from worry. Naturally, man alone spends his day encountering the crises of life and striving for seeking earnings. He can find relief nowhere except in the shadows of his darling, sincere wife who, trying to ease his troubles, encompasses him with kind treatment and affectionate conduct. Referring to this fact, God says:
“His creating spouses for you out of yourselves so that you might take comfort in them and His creating love and mercy among you re evidences (of the truth) for the people who (carefully) think (30:21).”
The Prophet (s) said: “Subsequent to the embracement of Islam, the best thing that a Muslim can profit is a Muslim wife who pleases him when he looks at her and has loyalty to him in honor and property.” ( 9 )
Marital Happiness
Marital happiness is achieved when it is known how to choose the suitable partner. There are certain standards in the light of which spouses must be chosen. Such standards strengthen the marital ties and make peace of mind cover all the corners of the spouses’ lives. Bad choice, on the other hand, exposes marriage to failure and disappointment.
Treating this important aspect that plays a great role in people’s life, the Ahl ul-Bayt (a) referred to the advantages and disadvantages of both men and women so that each will know how to choose a spouse.
The Ideal Husband
The ideal husband is the qualified man who achieves happiness to his wife and ensures tranquil marital life. Unlike the false idea of most of people, the qualifications of a spouse have nothing to do with material vanities, such as handsome house, comely means of transportation, or big fortune. The true qualifications are high certificate, respectful office, high morality, and the like matters. Material vanities may be found with many spouses; still, they are unable to achieve marital happiness or achieve their wives’ pleasure and expectations.
Listen to the following words uttered by the wife of Muawiya —the Umayyad caliph— who could no longer stand the life of luxury, lavish expenditure, and wealth in the laps of her husband, and longed for her love’s young dream, though he cannot secure luxury, lavish expenditure, and wealth:
A house in which souls are roaming is favorable, in my sight, to a handsome palace. To have a single cloak with delight is favorable, in my sight, to wearing diaphanous clothes. A clumsy, but highborn, cousin of mine is favorable, in my sight, to a stern unbeliever.
Hence, the true qualification is the mixture of three things: true embracement of the religion, well mannerism, and capacity to maintain and guard the wife materially and morally. Having these three qualities, a man becomes, in the sight of Islam, an ideal competent husband.
The Prophet (s) said: “If a man whose morals and religiosity are accepted in your sight proposes to your daughter, you must agree; otherwise, there will come into being widespread idolatry and great evil.” ( 10 )
Imam as-Sadiq (a) said: “The well-qualified husband is the chaste who can save good living.” ( 11 )
Thus, it is discommended, as an Islamic ruling, to give one’s daughter in marriage to the sinful, alcoholic, effeminate, ill-tempered, and the like individuals whose religiosity and morality are not guaranteed.
The Ideal Wife
The ideal wife is the faithful, chaste, highborn, well-mannered, good-looking woman who is well-behaved with her husband.
The Prophet (s) said: “The best of your ladies are the fertile, the amiable, the chaste, the proud with her family, the humble with her husband, who adorns herself for her husband, behaves decently with others, listens and carries out her husbands’ instructions, provides herself for him when they are alone, and avoids violating good manners, like men.
The worst of your ladies are the humble with her family and proud against her husband, the barren, the spiteful, who does not care if she does something hideous, adorns herself when her husband is absent, behaves chastely with him when he is present, does not listen and does not carry out his instructions, abstains from providing herself to him when they are alone just like a riding animal that prevents the rider from riding it, does not accept his apologies, and does not forgive his flaws.” ( 12 )
“The best women of my umma are the most bright-faced and the askers for the less dowry.” ( 13 )
“He who chooses a wife for her beauty only will not have his aim achieved. As for him who chooses a wife for her wealth only, Allah will leave him with that wealth. Hence, you should choose the religious women for marriage.” ( 14 )
“Beware of the green-looking women… It is the beautiful women of evil source.” ( 15 )
This prophetic tradition warns against marrying the beautiful women whose families are disreputable.
Observance of Rights
Spouses cannot obtain marital happiness before they apply the law of give and take to themselves through observing each other’s rights. Considering it as the first cell of society, the Islamic Sharia has paid a great deal of attention to the marital life through regulations and common rights of spouses and special rights of each. The common rights that each spouse should perform towards the other are honesty, confidence, trust, sympathy, and cooperation. These are the genuine supports of successful marital life.
Rights of Husbands
By virtue of their obligatory and guardianship on their wives, husbands enjoy definite rights:
1. Obedience to Husbands
A wife is fully responsible for responding to the husband’s acceptable desires, and avoiding any matter that harms him, such as leaving the house before obtaining his permission, spending his wealth wastefully, neglecting the domestic duties, and the like matters.
Imam al-Baqir narrated that the Prophet (s) answered the woman who asked him about the husbands’ rights against their wives by saying: “Women should obey and avoid defying their husbands. They should not give alms out of the husbands’ wealth before obtaining their permission, avoid observing fasting recommendably before they obtain their permission, respond to their sexual call every time and in every manner, even if they were on the backs of camels, and not leave their houses before obtaining their permission. If they do, they are cursed by the angels of the heavens, angels of the earth, angels of wrath, and angels of mercy until they come back to their houses.”
The woman then asked: “God’s Messenger, who is the owner of the greatest right against man?” The Prophet (s) answered: “His father is.”
She asked: “Who is the owner of the greatest right against woman?” The Prophet (s) answered: “Her husband is.” ( 16 )
Imam as-Sadiq (a) narrated that a woman, whose husband had ordered her not to leave her house until he would be back from his journey, sent a messenger to the Prophet (s) to ask him a permission to visit her diseased father.
“No,” answered the Prophet (s), “She should sit in her house and obey her husband.”
As her father became intensely ill, she sent a messenger to the Prophet (s) asking for permission to visit him.
“No,” answered the Prophet (s), “She should sit in her house and obey her husband.”
As her father was dead, she sent a messenger to the Prophet (s) asking for permission to attend his funeral ceremony.
“No,” answered the Prophet (s), “She should sit in her house and obey her husband.”
When her father was buried, the Prophet (s) sent a messenger to tell her that Allah forgave her father and her because of her observance of the obedience to her husband. ( 17 )
Imam as-Sadiq (a) said: “As for any wife who passes a night while her husband is angry with her for a question in which he is right, her prayers will not be admissible unless her husband is pleased with her.” ( 18 )
2. Compliance with Husbands
Wives are recommended to encompass their husbands with nice sociability, pleasant attention, and kind compliance by means of observing their affairs, securing means of their physical and mental tranquility, doing well the housekeeping, and caring for the family members. Carrying out so, wives will certainly be dear and lovable by husbands. Moreover, wives, by following such instructions, become good examples for their sons and become the sources of high moral standards. The most significant form of the wives’ compliance with their husbands is to avoid exhausting them by expensive charges that injure their economical capacities. This causes confusion to husbands who, subsequently, begin to have an aversion to their wives.
Imam al-Kadhim (a) said: “Jihad of women is their compliance with their husbands.”
The wives’ good behavior and compliance with their husbands raise their spirits and supply them with huge physical and mental energies helping in going on exerting all efforts for seeking earnings and encouraging on standing ordeals and crises of life. T he wives’ quarrelsomeness and disobedience, on the other hand, enfeeble the husbands’ entities and bring to them senility earlier.
The following story is a good example:
A group of people went to ask the three brothers of Banu Ghannam for a solution for their complicated question. As they met the first one, who was old man, and asked him for a solution, he referred them to his brother saying, ‘You may find a solution with him because he is older than I am.’ When they went to meet his brother, they found a middle-aged man. Having sought a solution from him, he said, ‘You may see my third brother and, because he is older than I am, you can find a solution with him.’ Hence, they went to the third brother to meet a young man. As they could no longer conceal their astonishment, they asked him about his two brothers and his manner. He answered: ‘My brother whom you first met is the youngest among us. Unfortunately, he had t o suffer the misbehaviors of his ill-tempered wife because he anticipated an intolerable matter if he would divorce her. His wife therefore has been the main reason beyond his growing old at an earlier time. The second one you met is the middle among us. His wife has gathered both good and bad mannerism. She sometimes pleased him, but she also displeased him. Hence, you can see him as middle-aged man. I have a well-mannered wife who never shows misbehavior with me. Hence, I could keep my youth with her. ’ ( 19 )
Let us now listen to the following words of a wise Beduin mother who provides some instructions to her daughter on her wedding night:
“Daughter, you will very soon leave the house in which you came to this world and the nest in which you grew up to join a nest that you have not known yet, and a companion with whom you have not familiarized yourself yet. Thus, you should behave as his bondmaid so that he will behave as your slave. Observe for him the following ten points:
The first and second are that you should live with him with satisfaction and associate with him with obedience.
The third and fourth are that you should observe the places where his eye and nose notice. Hence, he should not see anything ugly and should not smell anything bad from you.
The fifth and sixth are that you should observe the times of his sleep and food. Continuous feelings of hunger arouse fiery and continuous disturbance of sleep arouses rage.
The seventh and eighth are that you should observe his wealth and respect his family. To observe his wealth is to opt for moderation, and to respect his family can be achieved through good management.
The ninth and tenth are that you should avoid disobeying his orders and divulging his secrets. You will certainly arouse his malice against you if you disobey him, and you will certainly expose yourself to his unexpected punishment if you divulge his secrets.
Beware of showing happiness before him when he is sad or showing depression when he is happy, because the earlier is a sign of negligence and the latter is a sign of annoyance.
Glorify him more than anyone else does, so that he will honor you more than anyone else. You must know that you cannot obtain that which you like before you prefer his satisfaction to yours and prefer his desires to yours in any matter. Finally, God may choose for you the good.” ( 20 )
3. Observance of Husbands’ honor
The most important obligation that is imposed upon a wife is to protect her husband’s honor and reputation and exert all efforts for avoiding any matter that deforms them, such as profligacy, garishness, or divulgement of secrets, especially matters that husbands try to conceal. Any negligence of this right will waste away confidence and threaten with disagreement.
Rights of Wives
The Islamic Sharia has paid the greatest attention to wives and granted them, opposite to the rights of husbands, all their material and ethical rights that are based on wisdom, justice, and the good and interests of both spouses:
1. Disbursement
It is obligatory upon husbands to save their wives’ essentials material requirements, such as clothing, food, and residence as well as other requisites that meet their ranks and way of living. From the viewpoint of the Islamic Sharia, disbursement is a familiar right that husbands must carry out for their wives, no matter how wealthy they are. This right, however, does not cease to be valid unless the wife is decided as recalcitrant. Furthermore, husbands are not allowed to coerce their wives to do the household managements or nurse the babies unless they themselves do such matters voluntarily.
2. Good Companionship
Wife is the husband’s intimate companion and partner of his life. She shares him in good days and bad days, consoles him in sorrow and in joy, and does alone exhausting efforts, such as the household managements, care for the family affairs, and maternal functions. Hence, it is necessary for husbands to associate with their wives nicely and treat them with leniency. Out of their boasting and arrogance, some husbands misthink that manhood cannot be achieved unless they control, mistreat, insult, and disgrace their wives. As a matter of fact, such qualities are detestable since they indicate the complexity and feebleness of personality. They also create disorder of marital life and eradicate family pleasure. In view of her emotions and functions, woman i s sensitive and quick-tempered; therefore, she may, sometimes, utter an unbecoming word or stinging reproach originated from a mental excitement or emotional agitation. In such cases, husbands are required to control themselves and turn in kind forgiveness so that the family march will go on peacefully.
The Prophet (s) said: “The like of woman is a crooked rib. If you leave it crooked, you will benefit by it. But if you try to fix it, you will break it.”
This means that man, when his wife exceeds the limits of disobedience to him, must treat her, first, by means of advice. If such means prove futility, he must follow the method of ignoring her and avoiding sleeping with her. If this is also useless, he m ay then beat her, but not severely:
“Admonish women who disobey, do not sleep with them and beat them. If they obey, do not try to find fault in them. Allah is High and Supreme. (4:34)”
3. Protection
Because wives are under the guardianship of them, husbands are responsible for defending them against any matter that may cause them moral or material injury or may defame or soil their dignities, such as dissoluteness and suspicious association with the other sex or immoral women. How ugly those men who shove their wives in mixed clubs and dissolute parties and allow them to dance with whomsoever they want are! They try to close their eyes before the serious religious, moral, and social dangers of such mixing that threatens the family entities with disorder and disintegration.
Man, too, must be jealous and protect his wife and family against the trickeries and misleading rumors of the invasions that could deceive many male and female Muslims who, lacking enough knowledge of the principles and concepts of their religion, repeated these rumors just like parrots. It is important for such individuals to learn enough about their religion, each according to his intellectual and cultural level, so that they will be saved from the evils and trickeries of such invasions.
“Believers, save yourselves and your families from the fire which is fueled by people and stones and is guarded by stern angels who do not disobey Allah's commands and do whatever they are ordered to do (66:6).”
False Rights
Intending to extinguish the luminous light of Islam, the anti-Muslims have dedicated all efforts to invading the Islamic world by weapons of delusions and false principles. Unfortunately, the inexperienced and the dull responded to such strange concepts, and went on imitating and calling for them as if they are within their untouchable values. Because of that, curtains covered the Islamic portrait that has been shining with beauty, illumination, and ideality and a new deformed, hideous portrait came out . Islam, thus, began to feel strange and alienated among its people, while the non-Islamic concepts occupied large positions in the intellects and feelings of Muslims to clear them out of values and idealities. Moreover, many calls and hireling writers r aced in demanding with more non-Islamic traditions so as to spread them in the Islamic environment through false claims of defending, releasing, and equalizing women with men, in addition to similar fake statements. Let us now refer to some of these deceptive rumors:
Removal of the Veil
As they could not stand seeing Muslim women guard themselves from dissoluteness and lechery through veiling themselves with hijab, ( 21 ) the propagandists of liberalism tried to seduce them by means of removing the veil and grooming themselves so as to take t hem away from the highness of their dignities and boudoirs. Having been deceived by such false calls, some women, unfortunately, responded and began to remove their veils and show their beauty and charms so as to prepossess eyes and hearts shamelessly. All over their extensive history, Muslim women, who ignored the dangers and slips that were plotted against them, have never been seduced in such a mean and illusory way.
Unlike the idea of the dissolute, hijab is not an aspect of retardation or reactionism, it is in fact an aspect of modesty and chastity since it guards women against indecorum and deterioration, protects them from the snooping of the aberrant, and keep t hem away from the slips of vices and seductions.
Finally, Muslims must learn lessons from the Western nations that have suffered many misfortunes of immorality as well as ethical, physical, and social tragedies—all because they allowed removal of veiling, primping up, and mix of the sexes to prevail on their societies.
Moral Defects
Primping up and mixing of the sexes have created moral complications in the Western milieus. Thus, they have no longer denied the sexual vices or felt ashamed of their sins. Accordingly, they have become the subjects of moral diseases that massacred them so heavily that the honorable personalities have had to declare their denial and complaint and warned against the horrible dangers of such dissolution.
Depicting the collapse of morality in his country, Paul Beaudre—the French author said that it had no longer been odd to hear about the existence of sexual relations between the relatives, such as fathers and daughters and brothers with their sisters in some French provinces as well as the crowded quarters of cities.
The Fourteen Committee, whose task is to inspect the ambushes of lechery reported that most of the nightclubs, dance halls, manicure places, stores of cosmetics, massage rooms, and coiffures have become brothels or, perhaps, something too horrible to be mentioned.
Ben B. Lindsey –the judge of Los Angeles in 1934- predicted that forty-five per cent of girls of schools profane their honors before they leave schools. In the higher stages of study –as the judge added- this rate raises vastly.
In his book titled ‘History of Lechery’, George Scat, referring to the common state in his country, said that numbers of the non-professional prostitutes have come to an unprecedented rate. Among almost all the social classes, you can find such prostitutes. In the sight of girls nowadays, sexual intercourse, lechery, and even abnormality have become within the modern styles of living. Such moral corruption can be found even with the children of both sexes because they have been affected by the crooked e nvironment and the sexual incentives.
In his book titled ‘Sexual Regulations,’ Dr. Rodet Hugo said that it had not been odd or abnormal to see the seven or eight-year-old girls play sexually with boys or, even, practice sexual intercourse with them.
A physician from the city of Baltimore reported that in a period of one year, more than one thousand suits of committing fornication with less than twelve - year - old girls were brought before the courts in that city alone. Moral corruption has not stopped at such lowly levels, but it has exceeded all limits of normal sexual relations to reach a stage of perversion and sexual deviation. It has become familiar, under the encouragement of the law, to see a boy get married to a boy of his same sex and to see some people congratulate for such marriage!
Dr. Hooker says that it has been common, in the faculties, nursery schools, and even religious schools, to hear about the commitment of sodomy among the students most of whom have completely lost any desire for the other sex.
Let us now ask the parrot-like propagandists of liberalism whether this is the very goal that they want for the Islamic nation and themselves, or whether they do not understand the results of their liberalism!
Beyond dispute, every individual who calls for liberalism and primping up is no more than an axe deconstructing the entity of the Islamic society, and a pioneer of evil and dissolution in his nation and country.
“Those who like to publicize indecency among the believers will face painful torment in this world and in the life to come. Allah knows what you do not know. (24:19)”
Physical Defects
Any nation that lacks religious and moral values and is predominated by deviation must encounter the results of its individuals’ aberrance and corruption. Like the collapse of moralities, individuals of such a nation must suffer physical collapse.
This is what has exactly occurred in the Western milieus that have become the target of venereal diseases, which caused great losses, socially and economically. Hence, physicians, through numerous reports, have gone on declaring the dimensions and dangerous tragedies of such diseases.
A French physician declared that, because of syphilis and venereal diseases, more than thirty thousand persons die annually. After hectic fever, syphilis occupies the second position in the list of the deadliest diseases in France.
In Britannica Encyclopedia, it is recorded that, as an annual rate, 200,000 persons affected by syphilis and 160,000 persons affected by gonorrhea are treated in the official hospitals of the U.S.A. 650 hospitals have been specialized in treating these d iseases. In addition, 61% of the diseased with syphilis and 89% of the diseased with gonorrhea see official physicians.
In the book titled ‘Sexual Regulations’, it is recorded that 30,000-40,000 babies die in the U.S. annually because of hereditary syphilis, and that the number of mortalities because of the other diseases —except tuberculosis- is as same as the number of mortalities of syphilis.
Thus, the Western nations, because of their dissoluteness, have paid all these losses as taxes collected from the health and life of their individuals.
source : http://www.maaref-foundation.com
