:w:
Firstly Sister, may Allaah make it easy for you and reward you very much for expressing the desire to have a halal relationship through marriage. May He bestow upon you patience towards achieving your goal.
I feel so frustrat3ed and confused. When I read upon Islam, I see that Islam encourages us to get married young.
You are definitely correct. The Prophet (saw) encouraged us to marry young, and he put with it a condition saying in the hadeeth: "
Whoever among you can marry,
should marry.." Sometimes, we overlook the first portion of this hadeeth and focus upon the part where it says "
should marry". This is a mistake because there is a difference between 'should marry' and 'can marry'; marriage comes with a lot of responsibility and not everyone that reads the hadeeth is at the level of 'can marry'. Especially with sisters, they have to be able to deal with a lot from us brothers. Being able to marry means being, physically, mentally, emotionally, religiously mature. I am positive you feel you are ready in all these areas, but give it a year and you'll look back and realize that you've grown where you thought you couldn't.
I have recently tried to tell my mother that I am interested to get married.
Trust me, your mother's reaction is normal. Look at it from her perspective. She's been raising you for the past 16 years, and all of a sudden you're expressing a desire (which you can't be blamed for of course) to leave her and live with a man. From her perspective that's scary because in her eyes, you're still that baby that needed her for everything. This isn't specific to you, this is the case with most mothers. No matter how old their children get, they will always see us as we were when we were 5, i.e. with the same love, concern, and care.
You need to have a method of approach in these things. You need to
show them that you are mature, things that will show them that you are ready for family life. It can be little things such as, washing the dishes, laundry, cleaning the house, being financially responsible, waking up for Fajr without being told to, taking care of others, etc. You need to show them that you can deal with married life and its demands. Once you've been doing these things for a while and they've noticed it, you can subtly drop in hints that you want to get married. You know your parents best, so you know what they respond to positively and what they don't, so be smart in the way you bring this subject up.
Just because I am 16 doesn't mean that I am blind/deaf and my brain is dead.
Your right. And at the same time, you need to understand that what you are going through is a phase. Take this advice from someone that's been there and remembers exactly what it feels like to be going through what you're going through. I'm positive you're serious about marrying this brother, but there are things that you might not be aware of. There might be small habits this brother has that you might not be able to deal with 6 months into the marriage. You don't know how the brother really is and you can't know that until you're actually married to him and living with him everyday. Believe me, there is a phase of being 'in love', where everything looks rosy and sweet, but marriage is not a bed of roses. It's tough, it's demanding and it needs patience, maturity and understanding.
When I was your age I too wanted to just get married and whatever comes after that, I'll take care of it. It was a rosy and romantic scenario. Why? Because 1) I thought I was in love with this sister, 2) I thought everything would work out. 3) I was ignoring many of the things that come with marriage. I was probably prepared on the physical level, but mental, emotional, level most teenagers are not prepared. Looking back at myself now, I know for sure that I definitely wasn't prepared at that time. A
lot of people feel the same exact way. There's growth and what I wanted in a wife back then has changed to what I want in a wife now. Most people go through this growth.
Another shocker is the fact that the guy I want to marry is not an afghani, which shatters my parents universe.
That's to be expected. When a child marries, the parents themselves are looking to get something out of the marriage. The Mother looks for an extension of her social network, i.e. she wants the marriage to make her connect with more women. The Father looks for social standing. He wants to make sure that people don't say anything derogatory about him, his family and his child. So you need to think in this perspective. What are my parents going to get out of this marriage? And you need to bring out what pertains to them.
When you want to marry out of your culture, many parents have different concerns than their children. What they're seeing here is along the lines of: 'What will happen to the children?'. 'What if the grandchildren won't be able to communicate with our family?'. 'What if there is a culture clash between our families?', 'How will our families interact?' and more. They are very valid concerns which need to be sorted out before these marriages can take place. You should also keep in mind that your culture very much defines you. You don't see it now, but when you grow older you'll notice that you're more like your parents than you can see at this time, and those little cultural habits that you're soo used to now, which you overlook, these will turn into significant issues later, a year or two into marriage when you're over the "in love" phase.
Secondly, the way you talk to your parents very much matters. Your mother needs to be spoken to in an emotional way. Women respond more to 'emotional' language. I
feel vs I
think. So when you speak to your mother, appeal to her emotions. Try to make her understand what you are going through. The father on the other hand needs to be spoken to rationally. Men are emotionally-challenged, so telling your father that you're in love is making the worst-possible case to him and its like giving him complete reason to think that you're immature. Appeal to his rationale; show him rationally the benefits of this marriage. Men's brains are tuned to information, and if they perceive a lack of information in a conversation, their brains doze off. So when speaking to him, bring out facts and things that would make him think that you're marriage to this brother is a smart decision. So communicate with each of your parents in a way that would appeal to them.
You need to make sure that this 'love' is not blinding you to other aspects of marriage. When people love someone, they naturally have this feeling that this person is close to perfect and potential issues get overshadowed and in the background. He gets angry easily? It's ok, I love him and he loves me, so we'll sort that out after marriage, after all, how hard can it be when we love each other? I wished that it worked that way, but it doesn't. This phase that you're experiencing right now, it may be love, but the point is, actual,
real love only comes after marriage. When you've lived with this person and you know each other very much and you take the good side of the person along with not-so-good side. That's when you truly love this person.
Marriage is not easy. You're going to be living and sharing EVERY aspect of your life with this person and vice versa and you need to make sure that you can do that.
I know that he's only 18 and not wealthy, but thats ok with me. He's a good student so he will make money from his profession when he graduates enshaALlah.
See this is exactly what I was alluding to above. You love him, so financial standing is getting thrown into the background. The male needs to be able to provide for the wife, it's one of the things that is crucial for him to establish his
Qawama.
Believe me when I tell you that you are subconsciously throwing other things in the background as well.
What am I? Am I not a Muslimah, who was given the intellect, the heart, the right to choose her own husband?
You definetly have the right to choose who you want to marry. However, Islaam does not give you the right to marry without your Wali's permission, who at the moment is your father. Trust me, you do not want to marry a person based on an emotion at the expense of your family. Your family is your support. Your father is your spokesperson and your lawyer per say. He is the one that will back you and your needs up in front of your in-laws. He's your pillar of support. Don't marry without his permission because if you do, and two years down the line your marriage ends in divorce, who will you go back to?
Sister, there are A LOT of things to consider before marriage. It is very unwise to simply marry based off of an emotion. Decisions about marriage need to be made emotionally
and rationally. A lot of brothers and sisters are going through what you are going through, and even if what I've written sounds like I don't agree with marrying young, I really do. In fact, I honestly believe marrying young is very beneficial, especially in this society and very good for
halal companionship. And at the same time, you cannot turn a blind eye to the reality of marriage and what exactly spending your nights and days with another human being entails. I've come to this understanding of seeing people that are awesome, pious and educated getting married young and ending in divorce some time down the line. Why? Because they didn't do all their homework before getting married. Likewise, with intercultural marriages. I've seen them and I've seen a lot of them (not all, Alhamdullilah) end in divorce because the two spouses weren't able to cope with cultural differences because they lacked the maturity.
These are life-changing decisions, and they need to be made after a lot of thought, research, understanding, mutual consultation (especially with parents and family), rationally, and yes, emotionally as well. It all goes together.
I hope that Allaah makes it easy for you, and for all the other youth who are experiencing the same as you. I hope He grants us patience and understanding to make the correct decision and that He guides us in all our affairs to that which is of benefit to us here in this life and in Hereafter. Ameen.
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