I happen to read a marriage ad by this Muslim guy who is looking for a wife and then it dawned upon me the dilemma faced by these self-arranged marriages. No criticism towards that one guy cause this is a predominant issue faced by many men and women who want to find a husband or wife the 'right' way or in a Shariah compliant way.
The ad says 'looking for...a particular look height, race' etc...but the thing is don't you want to marry someone that you actually fall in love with? It is as though people have this image created in their minds about this "perfect" person who must look a certain way e.g. fair, tall, slim and then they have to be "practising" err...whatever that means and they have to fit into this particular race or perhaps even a particular family or from a particular village? (Bear with me I will explain what I mean by falling in love) Anyway, if one is lucky enough to find that person then what do you do? Do you just suddenly fall in love with them? Is it like they fit into all these criteria of check list and now, I am going to fall in love with this person. When do you get to know them, their likes, dislikes, personality, what makes them happy, what makes them sad, what makes them stress out, what do they do when they are stressed out? When do you know that you like them as a person? that you want to spend your entire life with them? that you can accept all of their weaknesses and flaws and all their bad habits? Accepting people's good points is not so much of a problem but accepting their bad points, is very important when you want to share a life with someone.
Sometimes I think people live in a fantasy world and think that Islam is suddenly going to give them the "perfect" marriage. First and foremost no one is perfect and marriage is never going to be perfect. If we look Prophet Muhammad and Khadijah, neither of them were looking for a life partner rather Khadijah was looking for someone to work for her business, a sales person whereas Muhammad (peace be upon him) was looking for a job. However, through their interaction and his ability to negotiate, trustworthiness in handling her business, she fell in love with him. She fell in love with his personality, his character and great qualities.
I wonder when should that happen in an arranged marriage? even if you arrange it yourself. How do you get to know someone? I know my colleagues for example, their strengths, their weakness. I have seen them under stress. I have seen them when they are in a good and bad mood. I know who I enjoy working with. I am sure many people out there maybe fortunate enough to find their soul mate from their arrange marriages; those who get to know one another after marriage and actually find that they get along and fell in love but it is a bit of "hit and miss"; some may not be so fortunate and they find that post marriage, they don't actually like one another. I mean, they both maybe very nice people and we are not even going into mental, emotional or physical abuse here. We are simply talking about two nice, normal people who happen not to get along. So, what do you do? The thing is it did happen to Zayd (the Prophet's adopted son) and Zainab, remember? They didn't get along and the marriage ended in divorce.
I was fortunate enough to experience both types of marriages. My first marriage was self-arranged and even though I hardly knew my ex but I saw certain qualities in him that made me recognized the goodness in him, first of all I felt that God showed him the path to convert (and it was from his own initiative) and nothing to do with wanting to get married. To me, that was a good quality and I saw that he had sincerity and honesty. Whatever disagreement and personality clashes we had during the marriage that ended in divorce, I always remember the good qualities he has and I never regretted any of the decisions made i.e. to marry and then to divorce. As far as I am concerned, both decisions were valid. I am glad that we both moved on and have our own family. As for the kids they are old enough to keep in touch with their dad without my interference.
My second marriage is to my old time best friend whom we met as teenagers. The thing was we never intended to be more than friends, we simply enjoyed each other's company and when fate took us away from one another; we remained special in each other's heart despite not being in contact. A few years after my divorce and he contacted me; he was also going through a divorce, meeting him again he asked how do feel seeing him again and my answer was honest I said, "Just like before."
The person's looks, race and all these tick boxes are not real; cause in reality, the person you fall in love with normally do not fit into tick boxes. I hardly thought about what my now husband looked like when we were hanging out as friends. I just liked him as a person. I enjoyed the things we talked about, he was knowledgeable, fun, intelligent and I loved the way his eyes just light up whenever he saw me. It didn't bother me what he looked like, what colour were his eyes or the scars he had. When we became friends, everything else became superficial.
We need to make our lives real. There is nothing wrong to get to know people around us. Why do we teach our kids to grow up together and then at puberty, they can't even look at one another. Fatima and Ali grew up together, lived under the same roof and they got married. Why do we stop our kids from contacting one another through WhatsApp or Instagram and yet, at University or work they will still have to mix and joke with colleagues; and if they happen to fall in love with someone at work who is 'not practising' or not wearing the hijab then we tell them they can't marry that person; but they have to look for this tick box list that is so theoretical.
I don't know the answer but perhaps if we want to make this arrange marriage thing works, we have to be more open minded. Throw away the current tick box, forget about race or looks or whatever and have a tick box that says what are the qualities that you look for and more importantly what crap are you willing to put up with? Are you willing to put up with a wife who is jealous, or gets super emotional when she is on her period or is very opinionated or happens to hate cooking? Women are you willing to put up with a husband who loves or perhaps does not love football (if you are a football fan) or does not know how to change a tyre or have no idea how to comfort you when you feel down? Let's look at all the negative things, the imperfection that you are willing to put up with. Then, maybe it would be easier to find the "perfect" partner.
