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Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board
| Us or her? |
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| Danyala |
| 03/06/03 at 09:20:42 |
| [slm] Brothers, Hypothetically speaking, in a situation where you had to choose between your family and the spouse of your choice, which would you choose and why? Granted, Islam gives the right to you to marry of your own choice, and unlike women, men are able to marry technically without approval of their parents, but sadly many Muslim/Asian families tend to override this right with sentiments of 'keeping it in the family', 'marry your cousin or else', 'you're too young to understand' and classic moral dilemma 'its us or her' :( Any arguments for/against? Any advice on dealing with this type of situation? [wlm] :-* |
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| BrKhalid |
| 03/11/03 at 05:51:28 |
| Asalaamu Alaikum ;-) Ideally you’d want to please both your family and get the spouse of your own choice. However its very hard to answer this question generally because a lot depends on specifics and why parents are opposing the choice of their son or daughter. |
| 03/11/03 at 05:52:00 |
| BrKhalid |
| Re: Us or her? |
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| Danyala |
| 03/12/03 at 16:06:33 |
| [slm] I think the fundamental reason in this situation is the parents believe that marriage should be kept within the family and 'outsiders' may spoil the way they are used to doing things.which is why they reject someone their child feels compatible with. The way is thinking is why bother looking outside the family when we have two cousins the same age....rather than looking at compatability of the couple, they tend to give more prestige to compatability of the families. In my opinion both should be considered, but when a son is clearly not given any choice in the matter and is told that he is too young to make such a decision one wonders how to deal with the situation faced with such as stark choice; going through something he is not happy with and losing what he wants or standing his ground and risk losing his family? [wlm] :-* |
| Re: Us or her? |
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| Tesseract |
| 03/13/03 at 02:45:25 |
| Assalamu 'alaikum, [quote]Brothers, Hypothetically speaking, in a situation where you had to choose between your family and the spouse of your choice, which would you choose and why? Granted, Islam gives the right to you to marry of your own choice, and unlike women, men are able to marry technically without approval of their parents, but sadly many Muslim/Asian families tend to override this right with sentiments of 'keeping it in the family', 'marry your cousin or else', 'you're too young to understand' and classic moral dilemma 'its us or her' Any arguments for/against? Any advice on dealing with this type of situation? [/quote] U have described a situation where unfortunately many brothers end up. I don't know how common that is for sisters. But anyways, the thing is, parents need to understand the importance of religion in one's life. If for some reason they don't, I at least expect them to value their son's decision and choice. If God forbid, I end up in such a situation, where I like a sister and am interested in marrying her, and my parents don't agree and plainly deny its possibility, then I'll just calmly step back, and tell them I can't marry someone who is not religious because its very evident from Ahadeeth that u'll be a loser if u marry someone because of anything other than her religion. Having said that, I would ask them to talk to me about marriage only when they have someone to offer who is religious and they are comfortable with her. Islam places enough emphasis on being careful in not disobeying ur parents and also serving them at ur best when they are old. If u marry someone whom ur parents do not approve, there are many chances that ur parents wouldn't want to live with u. So, I don't see any point in getting married to a girl of ur choice and losing ur parents in return. I can afford to live without a wife, but living with displeasure of ur parents is very difficult for me, specially my mother. Whenever I talk to her, I see a lot of expectations in her eyes. I see a lot of pride in her eyes as being her son and someone who wouldn't let her down anywhere, anytime. Bottom line: Life is no life for me if u haven't learnt to sacrifice, specially for ur parents. Wallahu A'lam. Wassalam. |
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| Abu_Hamza |
| 03/14/03 at 00:21:11 |
| Masha Allah, nice post yaa akhi. |
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| al-tawbah |
| 04/11/03 at 12:03:37 |
| asalamu alaikum about a year or so ago, i was in this situation. the young wman that i wanted to marry was forbidden to by her family, and they made every effort for to force her to marry one of several men that they had chosen. their reasons? i am a american. i have no family so to speak of. my past, although i have long repented of it. she and i had founded an online group to urge others with the same trials as i had been guided away from, to repent. ( this is where i met her. she became interested in this trial and how it could be overcome because she had a cousin of whom she was very fond who dealt with the same thing) once they found out how she had come into contact with me, they hit the roof. they laid the heaviest guilt trip on her, using their poor health as a means of convincing her. in the end, she ended up marrying a man, who i am sure is very nice, at least i hope so. at that point, what could i possibly do once she told me what her decision would be? i began to pray for her happiness, and that she be a kind loving wife to him, just as i had once hoped she would be for me. i began to pray that her husband would be so deliriously happy that he would wake up each day with his heart crying "ALAHAMDULILLAH!" for the incredible woman that allah*swt* had sent to him. i still find it incredible that some people totally disregard the aspect of islam that teaches us that we cannot force our daughters into a marriage that she doesn't want. but then, while mankind is out of control, allah*swt* is in complete control of all. with this knowledge, i know that he still has plans for me, and it is his will that must be done, subhanallah. just because they went against his will does not mean that his will should not be done in my life. and it shall be done. the day shall come, when all creations shall bow down and submit to the will of allah*swt* until this happens, it is up to me to take personal responsibility for my own role in my submission with his aid in doing so. wasalaam |
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| Dude |
| 04/11/03 at 13:10:48 |
| One question...please clarrify "cousins". Surely not blood cousins? You mean, like close friends of the familly, right? Anyhow, from an experienced vetran: persuade, cajole, convince, sell yourself...I did it all to gain my future in-laws acceptance. Eventually I won them over. Funny, the first time I went to my wife's (then friend) house for dinner, her father brings up the topic of sending her to Austrailia to find a husband. Translation: back off, white boy! :D |
| 04/11/03 at 13:11:18 |
| Dude |
| Re: Us or her? |
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| Red |
| 04/11/03 at 15:21:16 |
| [slm], Bro Dude there ain't nothing wrong with cousins marrying each other! My parents are cousins and very happy mashallah! I know many people who are cousins and very successful alhumidallah. Its not that backward ;) (it may not occur as often now) , every culture i can think of has backgrounds of their relatives marrying each other. red |
| 04/11/03 at 15:22:10 |
| Red |
| Re: Us or her? |
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| Dude |
| 04/11/03 at 15:58:33 |
| Really? I've always though of my blood cousins as brothers & sisters...after all, half their blood is exactly as mine! It's basically the same as having a half sister or brother. I knew it happened in the past, but I thought that most people took great pains to avoid that. I guess it's just culteral. |
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| jannah |
| 04/11/03 at 16:19:21 |
| It's definitely cultural because in most of the world it's perfectly acceptable. It's not seen as "sharing blood", but as sharing a family, having the same outlook, being able to trust your spouse as he's somehow related to you and not a stranger. There's no prohibition in Islam on this, although the prophet [saw] encouraged to marry from afar. |
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| al-tawbah |
| 04/11/03 at 23:49:32 |
| asalamu alaikum by cousins, i did mean an actual second cousin. she was also fond of him, but not only did he not return the feelings, but went so far as to humiliate her by showing everyone her personal correspondence to him. she was better off without him. when she told me that she would obey her parents wishes, i then had the dilemma of how to change what i felt for her into something that was acceptable for me to feel for a married sister. that was probably the hardest part of the whole deal for me. incidentally, dude, two babies that may have absolutely no blood relation at all, but have suckled from the same woman, for whatever reason, are considered brothers and sisters. i found that pretty interesting. wasalaam |
| Re: Us or her? |
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| Dude |
| 04/12/03 at 17:40:22 |
| I can see that. It's just a culteral hang-up for me, that's all. In our familly, the cousins are all very close...like siblings. Personally, I couldn't even...YUK! :P Like kissing your sister! :o |
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