|
Does Modern Woman not want a Dower or Maintenance?
By: Martyred Ayatullah Murtada Mutahhari
We have pointed out that, according to Islam, it is the function of the husband to provide for the family expenses, including the personal expenses of the wife, and that the wife has no liability in this respect. The wife may have enormous wealth and may possess many times more wealth than the husband does, but still she has no obligation to contribute towards the family expenses. The contribution of the wife towards family expenses in money or in the form of work is optional, and depends upon her own will and inclination.
Despite he fact that the expenses of the wife are a part of a family’s expenses and are the responsibility of the husband, he, in view of Islam is not entitled to take financial benefit from, or to have a share in the proceeds of the wife’s labour and earnings. He cannot exploit her. The maintenance of the wife, in this respect, is like the maintenance of a father and mother which, in certain circumstances, it is the duty of a son to provide, but in lieu of the fulfillment of which the son is not entitled to any right in return for the services he has rendered.
An advantage to women in financial matters:
Islam has given women an unprecedented advantage in financial and economic matters. On the one hand, it has given her full financial independence and freedom, and has prevented man from having any power on her property and work. It has taken away from man the right of guardianship over the affairs of woman, such as existed in historical times and was customary in Europe up to the beginning of the twentieth century. Over and above that, by freeing her from the responsibility of family expenses, Islam has exempted her from any liabilities or obligations to run after money.
When those who worship the west wish to criticize this law, in the name of protecting women, they find no alternative except to have recourse to the invention of a bold lie. They say that the reason behind maintenance is that man considers him the owner of woman and engages her in his service. Just as the owners of animals are obliged to bear their expenses so that they may ride the animals, or so that the animals will carry loads for them, the law of maintenance has demanded, for the same purpose, the provision of the lowest, hand to mouth subsistence for woman.
If somebody were to take upon himself the task of attacking Islamic law with the criticism that this law has unduly is favoured woman and is not fair to man and has treated him as a wageless attendant of woman, he could more plausibly bring forward arguments in favour of his plea and give it an ostensibly more realistic form than the person who attempts to criticize this law in the name, and for the protection of, women.
The reality is that Islam does not seek to devise a law in favour of women and against, men, nor in favour of men and against women. Islam is neither a partisan of woman nor of man. In its laws, Islam has kept in view the prosperity of the woman and the man, and the children who are to be brought up under their care, and has, in the long run, kept the prosperity of all human society in view.
According to Islam the prosperity of men, women, their children and the whole of human society depends on the condition that the rules and laws of nature, which are conditioned and shaped by the strong and prudent hand of the Creator, should not be blindly acted upon, without any sight into their wisdom.
As we have repeatedly mentioned, Islam has always observed the rule that man is a symbol of humility and need, and woman a symbol of needlessness. Islam recognizes man as a purchaser and woman as the owner of necessary goods. In the eyes of Islam, when the married couple lives together, it is the man who should consider himself the beneficiary and should bear the family expenses. The man and the woman should not forget that in the matter of love two different roles are assigned to them. The union will be stable, firm and harmonious only when the man and the woman behave within their natural roles.
Another reason why the maintenance is obligatory on the husband is that the pain, suffering and loss of energy involved in the birth of the next generation is left by an act of nature to be supported by the woman. Man’s natural function in this connection is only an act of pleasure and nothing more. It is the woman who is incommoded by menstruation who undergoes the burden of the period of pregnancy and the indispositions peculiar to it; it is she who bears the hardships of childbirth and the resultant dangers; it is she who nurses and takes care of the child.
All the above mentioned things drain the physical and nervous strength of the woman, and sap the energy which she could have spent in work and earning money. In the face of these hard facts, it were decreed that man and woman should be equally responsible for contributions to the family budget, and if the law did not come to her support, woman would be placed in a pitiable situation. These are the reasons that even among animals who live in pairs the male always stands in support of the female and helps to find food for her during her period of confinement when she gives birth to the offspring.
Besides that, man and woman are not created the same as far as their power to perform difficult, economically productive work is concerned. If there is a case of estrangement and the man takes a stand against the woman and says that be will not spend even the least amount of his earnings on her, the woman is never is able to earn a sufficient amount to reach the standard of the earnings of the man.
Leaving aside all his above everything else is the fact that woman is in need of more money and wealth than man. Articles of luxury and ornaments are the primary needs of a woman. What a woman spends on articles of luxury, on make-up and self-adornment is equal to the expenses of many men. This inclination towards adornment creates by itself an inclination towards variety and fancy in woman. For a man, simple clothes, as long as they are fit to be worn and are not old and worn out, will do, but for a woman what is the case? For a woman! dress is fit to be worn as long as it is to display some flew charm. 1 often do we with, that a dress or some jewellery should have more value for a woman than merely to be worn once! The energy and effort of a woman in earning wealth is less that that or a man, but a woman’s sagacity to spend wealth is many times more than a man’s.
Besides that, in order for a woman to remain a woman that is, to maintain her beauty, her elegance and ride, a much more comfortable, peaceful, and easy-going life is required, and fewer worries about necessities. If women were obliged like men to be always in search of and looking for resources and running after money, her pride would dwindle, and those wrinkles and knots would appear on her face which economic worries cast even on the face and forehead of man. It has been heard very often that those poor western women who are obliged to struggle for their livelihood in workshops, factories and offices, envy the life of eastern women. It is evident that a woman, who has no peace of mind and does not find time to attend to herself will also not be a source of delight and happiness for her husband
The result is that not only is it proper for the woman, but rather it is in the interest of the man and the well-being of the household also, that she should remain exempt from the compulsory struggle to finding the means and resources for living. Man also desires that his home should be a place of tranquility, a place for rest fatigue where the worries of the outside world may be forgotten. His wife has the power to make the home a place of repose and tranquility and a place to forget anxieties and worries, and she herself should not be exhausted and worn out by the fatigue caused by the outdoor tasks a man is required to do. How pathetic is the condition of a man who enters his house and finds his spouse more tired and more weary than he himself. Thus the wife’s comfort, well-being, happiness and peace of mind are of abundant value for the husband also.
The secret of a man readily giving money to his wife, the money which he brings home after strenuous labour and hard work, to be spent by her liberally as she likes, is that the husband understands that his spiritual needs are with his wife. He has realized that God has placed in his wife the source of his comfort and the solace of his spirit
And made of him his spouse that he might rest in her. (7:189) He has understood that the better the arrangements he makes for the requirements, comforts and tranquility of his wife, the better indirectly, he makes his own happiness and the comforts of his own home. He has come to understand that out of the two married people at least one should not be under the strain of struggle and fatigue, so that that one may be the source of comfort to the spirit of the other. In this division of work, the one who is more competent to step into the struggle of life is man, and the one who can better comfort and tranquilise the spirits of the other is the woman.
Woman is created in need of man in the material and financial aspects of life, and, likewise, man needs woman on the spiritual side. Without dependence upon man, woman cannot defray the expenses of her excessive material requirements which are many times those of man. Due to this, Islam has specified the woman’s legal spouse as the only centre of her independence.
If woman wished to live as she desired but not to depend exclusively on her legal husband, she would have to depend upon other men. This is unfortunately the case. Examples are easily found and the number is on the increase.
The purpose of propaganda against maintenance:
The women-hunters have understood this point, an one of the reasons for the propaganda against the maintenance of wife by her husband is this very thing. If excessive demands for money by the wife culminate estrangement, the woman can easily fall prey to the huntsman. If you look into the extravagant rationale behind rights that is being inculcated in the minds of women in certain institutes and organizations you will see exactly what I mean.
There is not the slightest doubt that the annulment of maintenance is a cause for the increase of promiscuity.
How is it possible for a married woman to separate the conduct of her life from man, and to manage her affairs according to her own preferences?
If you want to know the true position, it is the anxiety also of those men who are tired of the sumptuousness and extravagance of their wives which is a factor helping the movement to annul maintenance. These people desire that, in the name of freedom and equality, and by the endeavours of women themselves to attain these goals, they should take their revenge on women for their luxuriousness and extravagance.
In The Pleasures of Philosophy, after he has defined modern marriage in the words, ‘legal marriage, with legalized birth control, and with the right to divorce by mutual consent for childless couples, usually without payment of alimony”(p.150), Will Durant says: “Very rapidly the luxurious ladies of the bourgeoisie are bringing down upon all their sex the revenge of the tired male; marriage is changing to a form that will not tolerate the unproductive women who are the ornament and horror of so many expensive homes; the men are inviting their modern wives to earn for themselves the money which they are to spend. For companionate marriage provides that until maternity is in the offing, the wife shall go to work. Here hides the joker by which the liberation of woman shall be made complete: she shall be privileged henceforth to pay her fare from A to Z. The Industrial Revolution is to be carried out to its logical and merciless conclusion, woman is to join her husband in the factory; instead of remaining idle in her bower, compelling the man to produce doubly as a balance to her economic sterility, she shall become his honored equal in toil as in reward, in obligations as in rights.” (ibid, p.151)
Wealth in place of husband:
The point that the natural functions of a woman in giving birth to children necessitate that in monetary and economical matters she should have something to rely upon is not something which can be denied.
In today’s Europe there are persons who, in support of woman’s freedom, have gone to the extent of advocating the return of the matriarchal system and banishing the father altogether from the family circle. They believe that with the full economic independence of woman, and her equality to man in all respects, man will, in future, be considered an extra limb, and will be dropped from the family for ever.
Quite simultaneously the same individuals invite the state to come forward as a substitute of the father. To mothers who would never be able to establish and form a family and perform all the necessary duties single-handed, the state, they say, should make grants of financial assistance, so that they do not need to refuse to become pregnant, and the continuation of society in the next generation may not be interrupted. In other words, the mother of a family who lived on maintenance, and, as those who attack this position put it, has been the property of her husband, will henceforth live on the maintenance of the state, and will be the property of the state. The duties and the rights of the father should be transferred to the state.
How sincerely we wish that those individuals who, with a pick-axe in their hands, blindly and indiscriminately demolish the equilibrated structure of our sacred homes which has its foundation in the sacred revealed law could think over the consequences and could look ahead of them and see the light ahead of them.
In his book Marriage and Morals, Bertrand Russell discusses certain cultural interferences and the welfare works of the state. Concerning children he says: “There is another powerful force which is working in the direction of the elimination of the father, and this in the desire of women for economic independence. The women who have been most politically vocal hitherto have been unmarried women, but this state of affairs is likely to be temporary. The wrongs of married women are at the moment much more serious than those of unmarried women...There are two different ways in which married women might acquire economic independence. One is that of remaining employed in the kind of work that they were engaged upon before marriage. This involves giving their children over to the care of others, and would lead to a very great extension of creches and nursery schools, the logical consequence of which would be the elimination of the mother as well as the father from all importance in the child’s psychology. The other method would be that women with young children should receive a wage from the State on condition of devoting themselves to the care of their children. This method would, of course, be not alone adequate, and would need to be supplemented by provisions enabling women to return to ordinary work when their children ceased to be quite young. But it would have the advantage of enabling women to care for their children themselves without degrading dependence upon an individual man.
“Assuming such a law to have been passed, its effects upon family morals will depend upon how it has been drafted. The law may be so drafted that a woman receives no payment if her child is illegitimate; or again it might be decreed that if she can be proved even once guilty of adultery, the payment should be made to her husband instead of her. If such is the law, it will become the duty of the local police to visit every married woman and make an inquisition into her moral status. The effect might be most elevating, but I doubt whether those who were being elevated would altogether enjoy it, I think there would presently come to be a demand that police interference should cease, with the corollary that even the mothers of illegitimate children should receive the allowance. If that were done, the economic power of the father in the wage-earning class would be completely at an end, and the family would probably cease after a time to be bi-parental, the father being of no more importance than among the cats and dogs.
“I think that civilization, at any rate as it has hitherto existed, tends greatly to diminish women’s maternal feelings…. It is probable that a high civilization will not in future be possible to maintain unless women are paid such sums for the production of children as to make them feel it worth while as a money-making career. If that were done it would, of course, be unnecessary that all women, or even a majority, should adopt this profession. It would be one profession among many others, and would have to be undertaken with professional thoroughness. These, however, are speculations. The only point in them that seems fairly certain is that feminism in its later developments is likely to have a profound influence in breaking up the patriarchal family, which represents man’s triumph over women in prehistoric times. The substitution of the State for the father, so far as it has yet gone in the West, is in the main a great advance.”
According to these supporters of the materiel independence of women, the annulment of maintenance would, according to the above statements, bring about the following results. The rejection and banishment of the father from the family, or at least the father’s diminishing importance, and a return to the age of the matriarchy, the State taking the place of the father, together with enfeebled maternal feelings, and a situation in which mothers, instead of having the attachment of love, will be reduced to the position of persons having a certain occupation and duty and having a certain job as a source of their earnings.
It is obvious that the consequence of all this is the complete ruin of the family, which will undoubtedly be succeeded by the ruin of humanity. Everything shall be put right, and only one thing will be missing, and that will be the prosperity, the pleasure and the enjoyment of those intellectual delights peculiar to the affection, of the home.
Anyhow, my contention is that even the supporters of the independence and complete liberty of woman, and the upholders of the total banishment of the father from the family, consider that the natural function of woman in giving birth to children requires some money or some assistance, and even, it may happen, wages and rent, but they consider it the duty of the State to give that right, as opposed to the father whose natural duty requires no fee.
In the International Labour Laws the minimum wages granted to a workman include the necessities of life for his wife and children. This means that the International Labour Laws officially recognize the right of maintenance for the wife and children.
Is the Declaration of Human Rights an insult to woman?
In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 23, clause 3, it is written: “Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity…”
In Article 25, clause 1, it says: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services,…….
In the above two articles of the Declaration it has indirectly been confirmed that every man who establishes a family should bear the expenses and the cost of maintenance of his wife and children. The money spent on them is to be reckoned as the necessary expenses of that man.
In the Declaration, despite explicitly mention that men and women have equal rights, the fact of the husband’s giving maintenance to the wife has not been considered incompatible with the equality of rights. Therefore, those persons who every now and then invoke the authority of the Declaration of Human Rights and its approval in the two Houses of the Iranian Parliament should consider maintenance as a settled question. Would the worshippers of the west, who call everything which has an Islamic colour reactionary and outdated, allow themselves to be disrespectful in the sacred presence of the Declaration of Human Rights as well, and continue to think of maintenance as bearing the traces of the ownership of man, and the slavery of woman?
What is more, in its Article 25, the Declaration says: “Every body has the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”
Here, not only does it treat the lots of the husband as a loss in the means of livelihood for a woman, but it has included widows in the same rank as the unemployed, the sick and those physical disabilities. Is it not a grave insult to women? If in any of the books or any legal work of the east an expression like this had been found, the wailings of the objectors would have reached the skies, as we ourselves witnessed in certain cases in respect of the laws of Iran.
Nevertheless a reasonable man, who is not biased and prejudiced, and has his eyes on all the sides of a question, will see that neither the law of creation, which has made man one of the means of a woman’s livelihood, nor the Declaration of Human Rights, which has included widowhood as a loss of the means of sustenance, nor finally the law of Islam, which has considered woman as entitled to maintenance has insulted her. The fact that a woman is created in need of man, and that the husband is considered to be the source of dependence of the wife is only one aspect of the problem.
The law of creation created man and woman in need of each other with a view to fitting man and woman more firmly together, and making the home, which is the basis of the real happiness of man, stronger and more secure. If, in monetary matters it has made man the source of dependence of woman, in spiritual tranquility it has made woman the source of dependence for man. These two different requirements make them more close and united to each other.
|
