What Is the Point of Marriage?

Love is universal, and is the language of Heaven, be it for a an object or living being it should be expressed and not surpressed. If two men love each other I think its the most beautiful thing in the world...nobody have the right to oppose that.

shaqielle khan

ms zahra,

......... no, i didn`t miss the point - the person you mention was simply trying to emulate the prophet`s matrimonial style!........ but you are right - i always tell my daughters never to be dependent on a man for anything ................ as their mother says, ``aadmi ki zaat ka koi aitebaar nahin!``.......... i ageee with mrs hamidm - she is a smart woman............

``The concept of Mahr is important ... ``#44 by echoboom on March 21, 2004 2:46am PT

Regarding ``Mehr`` or money/dowry a husband is supposed to pay for marriage :

Soldier`s shame over donkey sex
March 16, 2004
AN Afghan soldier was detained by police after being caught having sex with a donkey in southeastern Afghanistan, a police officer said today.
The soldier was discovered with the donkey in an abandoned house in a small village of Gardez, the capital of Paktia province, last week, a local police officer said.
``He was caught in the act by a small boy who immediately told police about what he had seen and police arrested him in action,`` the Gardez-based officer said, requesting anonymity.
The soldier claimed he committed the act because he did not have enough money to get married.
After being caught with the donkey in a village about 100km south of the capital Kabul, he was jailed for four days and then released without charge.
According to tradition in south and southeastern Afghanistan, a suitor must pay around $US5,000 ($A6,800) to the parents of the girl he wishes to marry.

--

All Islamists on Chowk interested in the mail-order-donkeys please contact Osama@donkey`sArse.com

Hamidm:

I think you slightly misunderstood the point. I also know of Pakistani Marriages amongst some acquaintances where the men who grew up here, happened to be ivy leaguers, and were married to a spouse who had apparently both looks and brains but turned out that the men lacked morals. One wife, a business woman, caught the remains of another woman at her place while she was away on a business trip. The chap`s parents were sitting somewhere in the middle east and the girl`s parents were in Pakistan. And, this was a very young couple, both held lucrative positions. When the guy was confronted he accepted and showed no remorse. From that point on the wife had lost her trust in that fellow. Now, come to think of it, how does one know that the man was having safe sex with his other partners ? Think about the implications for his wife.

So, it`s not only the mothers who ought to be blamed since once they raise the boy who stays a boy they cannot be blamed. And, this couple was in fact colleagues at work.

There are all kind of scenarios but a woman has to be extra cautious and never lean on a man 100% in any case. That`s just my observation and I am pretty good by the grace of God in my observations. It may be hereditary or 100% my very own attribute. Cannot thank more to Allah Taala for that.

Regards.

Zahra:47
No I did`nt.
Actually it was supposed to be addressed to Pakfin:#37.

Pakfin: please note!

Echo:

With due respect, I think you misread my humorous post # 47.

............. inspite of my reservations about traditional mariages, i would recommend it to my daughters - unless, of course, they declare themselves to be gay or muslimas and enter into a civil union or join a harem ............ but i do agree wth ms zahra that the ``typical`` pakistani ``boy``, fob or abcd, is a high risk proposition, especially if their mothers are alive and they seriously believe in al-lah and then go out and try to emulate the prophet`s matrimonial style .............

............ marriage can be horrible but, as janice said, ``freedom is just another word for nothing left to loose``..............

42:Zahraj

In the Islamic shari`ah, marriage is an `aqd, a contract. aqd means Knot. Correct term is aqd-e-nikah, meaning wed-lock or nikah-aqd.

As a contract, it depends on ijab (proposal from the bride) and qubul (acceptance from the groom). The contract can be verbally made by the parties themselves or by their representatives

One of the necessary conditions of an Islamic marriage contract is mahr. Mahr is usually translated as dowry, and it means the marriage gift which the groom agrees to give to the bride. It is actually the right of the bride and it is for her to specify or fix the mahr; and for the groom to either accept it or negotiate with his prospective bride.

The mahr can consist of a material item or a benefit (like training for something); it can be paid up front or can be in form of promise to pay upon demands decided prior to the solemnization of marriage.

There are many fine points and reasons for this.

What the general confusion seems to be is the manner of announcement or the wedding ceremony. Announcement is important for many reasons the chief being that the parties are no longer `available` and secondly to establish an agency relationship within this new partnership.

The concept of Mahr is important but it is entirely upto the prospective bride as to the manner she would want it established. An annuity, or a fund or cash or a promissory note are some of the kind. Even the promise to teach something (skill or any whatever learning) or to pay tuition etc. Bride can also waive mehr altogether.

Chief reason for mehr is that the wife commits her personna for the upbringing of the child.
She might be out of the job market (if in career) or would be physically not available to run her own business or tend to agriculture. According to the shariah she reserves the right to demand extra nutritive care as well as comfort in order for her to nurse the baby. She can demand child-care money, until the child reaches adulthood(puberty), even within marriage.

Whereas announcement of the marriage can take several forms it must be borne in mind that the spouses , depending upon circumstances, read their vows to each other without a ``witness``. The announcement, though, must be made as soon as possible.

For divorce, on the other hand, the announcement is a MUST so that the agency relationship is curtailed (loans etc) and that one is ``available``. In urban centers this can easily done by ``registration`` at the city hall.

This is a vey simplified gist I have been able to put together. According to ones own fiqh it is imperative and incumbent upon the prospectives to become somewhat knowledge. Unfortunately most couples have never ever read their own nikah-naamaas.

I do not want to discuss this further because I do not want to sound very ``knowledgeable`` (which of course, in such matters, I am not). I can gladly direct those interested to propper internet addresses. For seekers there is no shortage of material on these very important matters. Needless to remind here that most of our current day cultural and traditional practices are ``influenced`` very abominably and have delivered us into the hands and minds of those who perform these ceremonies just to accede to our demands and for fear of becoming an outcast.

Mohtaram Qibla Hamidm:

On Knitting & Cross-stitching:
I took knitting at the age of 7. Not out of sheer interest but it was part and parcel of the school life. I also learned cross-stitch and created quite a bit of havoc at home while I was a little teen-ager. I can never think of being condescending towards cross-stitching and knitting, but it`s been almost a decade or more that I have knitted anything. I may knit a cute scraf for my 2 year old niece since I detested the time when I was asked to knit baby sets in our 4th, 5th and 6th grade. How I hated it! I always asked Ammi to complete it. Laiken, I can take immense pride that I knitted the best put cable sweaters and presented them to my mother who loved it. This was from way back but still meant a lot to me at that age.

On Pakistani Descent:
Here, I clearly mean women who have grown up here and in Canada and have Pakistani parents. The said women have apparently conservative parents but since their daughters are on their own two feet so they have their own lives. Ironically, the parents are way too much paranoid :)

On Khawateen Digest:
Thank you for yor kind confession. Between you and me, sometimes too much knowledge can be quite harmful. I am glad you were only exposed to the said magazine.

ms zahra,

............. i bring up khawateen digest because that is the only women`s publication i know of .......i am sure there are others..... .....and the women i am talking about are the poor women in pakistan married to jewellers, army officers, wapda engineers, petrol pump owners and other riff raff - all of pakistani origin .............. as much as i wish i was white and born in belgium, most pakistanis happen to be born in pakistan !..... go figure! ........... i am glad that most of your friends are married to a more evolved species and get to ride bikes and horses and do other manly things, but i am talking about the average azra or nasreen who went to apwa college and ends up marrying some abdul just because everyone said the rishta was a good one ............. that`s who i am talking about - not you or my daughter who is out there at 11:15 hanging out wth her friends at starbucks or ............. 11:15 !........ see, that`s what happens when we give you girls too much freedom .............i should have listened to her mother and enrolled her in crochet classes instead of letting her join the rock climbing club !

Hamidm:

Are the women in your life that fascinated by khawateen digest that you have a tendency to bring that up every now and then or it`s your own fascination that makes you talk about the said magazine...why? I am just curious.

Most of my friends of Pakistani descent spend their time after work and studies in playing squash, heading out to the gym, hiking, aerobics, mountain biking, outdoors and you name it and they have a long list of extra curricular. And, I am not talking about women in their teens. Somehow, it seems that you have stopped somewhere as the women of the world were moving ahead. That`s equally dangerous despite your wit and humor.

But I would mention none of them are married to Pakistani Men(whether born or bred in timbuktoo or elsewhere). Thank you for highlighting examples from personal experience and giving a clear cut idea of who and what to stay away from.

#37:

Thanks for reminding the readers the true meaning of ``Nikaah.`` That was a great help before one delves into the said step.

[Now of course is it consent to live together, have sex, procreate or various combinations of these?]

I assume the above are not mutually exclusive. I can be wrong. But I have yet to hear that someone will live with somone, have kids with another person and have sex with a 3rd person. Obviously, if you are living with someone you will think of all the above with the same person - in my very humble opinion. The scholars may hold a different view on that.

The funny thing is, there is plenty of opinion floating around on how marriage between a man and woman is not relevant because how can a man be faithful to one woman all his life, etc.

But there is NO discussion on how marriage between man and man is EQUALLY irrelevant because how can a man be faithful to one man all his life, etc.

Often the people making arguments against marriage between man and woman are the same people making arguments in favor of marriage between man and man ( or woman and woman).


(PS: This is just an observation about the strange consequences of `outsourcing` one`s thinking to ideologues. Personally, I believe the state must support whoever wishes to get married).

......... a case for gay marriages

............. most paki couples i know - and i doubt if i know all the wrong people - seem to be either bored or indifferent towards married life ...........some of them are downright miserable but they seem to lack the gonads, or the female equivalents, to change their situation .............. few, if any, seem to have anything in common with each other except the coincidence that they belong to the same miserable sub-species .......... so, it is no wonder that if you go to any restaurant late in the night, you will find mostly married men sitting around bonding with each other over endless cups of tea, smoking cigarettes and discussing politics while their wives do the dishes and help the kids with the homework .............after the nightly bonding ritual they go home to wake up their wives to engage in some procreational sex to ensure the survival of the species .............

............. so, you see, paki men do make a good case for gay marriages ...........i am sure the women would be happier too - sitting around knitting, reading khawateen digest, exchanging receipes and waxing each other instead of having to put up with men with hairy backs .............

from where i see it there is no point, really..

I believe that the word Nikah means consent, so if there is consent there is marriage.

Now of course is it consent to live together, have sex, procreate or various combinations of these?

The motivation for getting married may be different for different people. Some people do this for companionship, some get married for sex, others do it to have children while yet others seek marriage as an escape. At the end of the day the important thing is that no one should be forced into marriage or cohabitation and whatever it is it should be consensual.