KOZHIKODE: Rihana, 27, is a PhD holder in Philosophy. She is hailing from a conservative Muslim family in Kozhikode and is yet to get married. Rihana’s is not rare case. There are several educated Muslim women who now fight the family pressure to get married early and pursue their studies and profession and the Muslim male community is yet to come in terms with this new challenge, a positive challenge according to many Muslim scholars, that these women are not ready to get married to anyone less qualified than them.
Highly qualified muslim grooms are in short supply. When getting married many educated Muslim men still do not persist on getting a girl equally qualified and are happy with a girl financially well off.
“Marriage is not the most important thing in a woman’s life. I think it is important for us to express our identity and independence more sternly. We are also earning for the family and we expect our partner to be more or equally educated and sensible enough to understand us as a separate individual. Marriage can wait till I find such a groom,” Rihana told DC.
Even conventional parents are now listening to the demands of their girl children but find it difficult to get a groom of their choice. “It is not that Muslim men are bad at studies. I think it is not just in the Muslim community but in every community that women are excelling better in studies. Now eve n men are open to the idea of wives continuing their studies after marriage,” opines noted Malayalam writer P K Parakadavu. He also fears that this situation could be misused by conventional people to prevent women from getting educated.
M N Karassery, noted writer and thinker believes that this situation is inevitable. “Anything that empowers women, give strength and freedom to them should be supported. Education of Muslim women is the best thing that has happened to the community. They now excel in almost all fields and that helps them revolt against the conventional norm of treating women as just a procreation machine,” Karassery said.
But if that is creating problem in getting the right groom, Kozhikode Valiya Khazi, Sayid Nazir Abdul Hayy Shihab Thangal, said that education should not come in as a constraint in finding the right groom. “There is no need to insist on getting a groom of same or higher qualification. Women should select a groom whose character is good and is capable of taking care of her,” he said.
