The problem of women, education, and marriage – Jamiatul Ulama KZN
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by Maryam Hedayat
Source: muslimvillage.com
Although we always talk about the advantage and equality of education for both men and women, yet when it comes to the point of marriage, men usually prefer to have less qualified women than they are.
We live in a society more equal than ever before. Women overall have achieved equality in many ways, yet the educated, successful woman is finding it more than challenging to get a soul-mate or a husband of her choice.
Similarly, men too are facing a more challenging position when they begin to find a soul-mate.
Women’s roles, attitudes and abilities to be in control of their life have changed drastically over the last fifty years. Men and women seem no longer to be on the same track as they were once before.
Possibly, the level of education seems to have affected men and women in distinctly different ways when it comes to marriage.
It has been studied that while higher education is an immense advantage for men regarding marriage, it is a minus for women looking for Mr. Right.
Most men believe that it is very difficult to lead a happy life with highly qualified women.
There could be many reasons that affect the way men think of educated women being not a suitable choice for family care.
It is perceived that women with high grades are very ambitious. They always try to dominate their husbands and in many cases of practical life, they fail to prove a good wife or a good mother. The more successful they are, the more likely to underrate their husbands.
Most men with better educational backgrounds have higher chances of getting married of their choice but in contrast women with master’s degrees or above, however, have lower chances of meeting lifetime partners.
Some thirty years ago both men and women saw marriage and having a family as a desirable goal. But now things have completely changed. Men and women no longer settle or marry for financial stability, companionship or for the sole purpose of being married as happened in bygone era.
Women of today, no longer need to depend on men for having a roof over their head, or whatsoever else for that matter, but as with everything in life, there is always a price to pay.
In a personal and idealistic sense, it is quite a drawback as women tend not to see marriage or having a family as important until they are past the point in which nature and advancement considered it was the right time to be married.
Men and women are planned to be attracted and desire certain elements in the opposite sex, and all the objectivity in the world cannot change this. But the difficulty women are facing today, in their desire and goal to contest men, they have become more like men, where they compete for the same careers, whether it be in the physical or academic sense.
Therefore the softness women once had, the kindness women once had, feminine instinct of nurturing and caring women once had, almost seem faded in them now. Men feel a woman’s feminine qualities have been filed down so much that they often feel they are seeing a male in a skirt.
In fact, the creator has made women with such intrinsic qualities as warmth of love, sensitivity and compassion. But in contemporary age women in order to follow men have lost their appealing feminine quality and have begun to inculcate masculine tendency in most activities of their life.
In fact, Allah has made man the primary bread winner of the home. Outside religion, it is in their DNA, and no one can change this reality. Majority of women wish their husband to earn more than them and they are happier, live longer and blossom. It gives them a better sense of security.
Figures have shown that where the husband provides for the family, at least 60 percent of marriages last longer than where the woman is the main contributor for the family. Divorce percentage of couples shows that couples with equal earning power or where the woman earns slightly more than the man are higher in numbers of divorced couples.
People always wish to have a perfect life-partner, and expect him/ her to be somewhat more perfect than they are possible to ever find. We cannot create a CV for finding a soul-mate. People are not stuffs, and no one can design the perfect partner, a lot comes down to inner qualities.
All relationships need to build firm foundations for balance and harmony if a relationship is to last beyond the honeymoon period.
It is time women bring back the quality of genuineness in their feminine character despite being ambitious enough to pursue manly goals in life. Let the higher qualifications in women not overshadow their natural appealing instinct of love, care and share.
