NOTE: I am NOT single bro :-[
AssalamuAlaykum
The World from the view of a Single Brother
By Haytham Soliman (
click here for his bio )
In a world were sexual culture dominates media (
read this CNN article about Sexual Content on TV to Teen Pregnancy), one finds himself surrounded with nothing but stimulus that pushes him to a direction that he knows that it isn’t the right one. This environment coupled with natural urges can put people in weird situations.
So we ask ourselves, what’s the way out of this? How can we resolve such issues and consciously feel good about the solution. And the obvious answer to the question is “I want to get Married.”
One might ask, is sex the only motive that drives men to get married? And the answer to that is NO of course it’s not the only reason, but indeed its one of the very top ones. This goes for brothers and sisters equally. I must admit though, I don’t know how it feels like being a single sister, but rest assured I know very well how it feels like being a single brother. So here is a point of view that lots of other single brothers share when it comes to pre-marriage issues. I will try to cover three main areas starting with parents of a prospect wife, then the prospect wife, and end with our own insecurities.
Our view about the parents of a prospect wife:
Single brothers fear parents with “very” high expectations. They tend to demand a lot in order to stay within their class values. This issue is the seed for all sort of different problems such as the dowry, the wedding, where are they going to live, etc. Also their very high expectation of the career of the brother who is proposing. Its as I said before, they expect a prince, prophet, nerd, scholar, doctor and engineer, rich, humble… etc which leads us to fear them rather than just trying to build bridges with them.
Many parents also object to the “religiosity” of the brothers. This of course due to the times that we live in nowadays. Not only that, but also due to the fact that they view a religious person to be a dumb, have nothing better to do, uneducated, and poor. This comes with the culture baggage that they brought with them from back home (where ever that maybe).
If you are an immigrant holding a visa (tourist or a student visa) your chances of getting married to a girl from here are slim to none. That is due to the fact that parents fear that they ONLY want to marry their daughter for the “papers”. Though this maybe true in some cases, I object to having this believe as a default of all my immigrant brothers and sisters. Some of them are sincere and really want to marry your daughters for the sake of marrying her not for the papers, or to be more exact, not entirely for the papers.
I remember Shaykh Yasir Qadhi in a ICNA conference in Houston (May of 2007) said that he believes that it is permissible for the father to ask “how much money do you have saved up beta?” question. I can tell you right now, most of us “single brothers” are not well established enough to have saved up big sums of money to show to our inlaws. This is very important because parents tend to forget that the brother might be very comfortable financially in few years, but cant wait to get married for few years.
In my mind, if I were to be asked this question, I would reply back and say, Uncle, when you married your wife, how much money did you have in your account? Of course that will result to an automatic rejection, but that is besides the point.
There is more to be said about this, but maybe inshaAllah we can elaborate on it in a future post.
Our view about the prospect wife:
I will list the top
10 things single “religious or wana-be religious” brothers look for in their future wife: This doesn’t come from a “scientific survey” but based on the views of a few brothers from different background racially, educationally, religiously.
1- Physical Appearance. Though this was the first point almost all those I surveyed mentioned, some of them said that she has to be “GORGEOUS” and others said, she doesn’t have to be SUPER good looking, yet she has to be good looking enough.
2- Religiosity. This doesn’t only mean that she prays and fasts, but also includes her eagerness to learn her deen and act up on it.
3- She must be attracted to me (She has to like me, intellectually, physically, and every other aspect out there).
4- Manners. This is different that religiosity because she can pray yet disrespect her husband. That includes physical, psychological, or verbal abuse or disrespect. This also includes her treatment to our families specially our mothers.
5- Knows how to cook. I know that some sisters fantasize about having a husband who will cook for them, which by the way guys dont mind every once in a while, but the reality is that rarely when you find a guy who would do it all the time.
A wise lady said one time, the shortest way to a mans heart is his stomach. Just a word of advice for my single and married sisters.
6- Westernized, yet carries the traditional values.
7- Dresses Islamically. This varies from one single brother to the next. Some are cool with loose pants, others are strictly Abayas but the one common ground was Hijab.
8- Know how to support her husband. Unlike most of what my single sisters believe, men too need emotional support. They work all day and come to the house expected to spend time with their wives, listen to them, comfort them, take them out, make them feel all good but who is out there to make the man feels good?! Here is something for you think about.
9- Jealous, but not too jealous. Men always want to feel wanted and needed. A sense of jealousy from his wife gives him the feeling that she wants him. Of course if she is an extreme jealous person, then in this case, a second wife is due. haha joking people dont shoot me.
10- I can carry an intellectual conversation with her without the fear of being penalized for holding certain views. This goes out to my married brothers who told me that they “must” agree with their wives otherwise they usually spend the night on the couch.
Of course the order various from one person to the next and of course this list does not apply to all the single brothers, but I guarantee you that at least 4 out of the 10 will be common in all what the single brothers are looking for in their future wives.
Finally, Our view about our own insecurities:
While I was asking some of the single brothers this question, I got a lot of long faces and no answers. I found out that its very hard for a man to discuss his own insecurities to others (at least to other men).
I guess this is a part of our “macho” mentality that we are not suppose to be weak in public or in front of anybody. This I will say, is one of our biggest insecurities. The fear to be looked down upon from other peers.
Though we wont admit it, single brothers try to impress the sisters by how they look. Single brothers feel very insecure about their weight, and physical appearance in general.
Single brothers fear the comparison to other single brothers when it comes to proposing to sisters. I can tell you countless stories of 2 (or more sometimes depending on the sister) brothers “competing” over a sister.
Assuming that the brother comes from a decent but not rich family, one fear that he wont be able to provide for her as her parents did. Which usually causes some brothers to stay single longer than average.
Finally, single brothers feel so insecure when it comes to understanding their future wives. We hear horror stories from married men (and if you married sisters ask your husbands, they will deny it because they actually want to sleep in peace tonight) about how its almost impossible to understand what women want or need.
Again, there is much more to be said about this topic, but due to the fact that some brothers refused to answer this question (refer to the first insecurity that i mentioned) i wasn’t able to get a comprehensive insight in to what single brothers view as their own insecurities.
To sum all this up, Muslims as a big community should be able to relate to our single brothers needs. If not, more family and social issues will start appearing. Issues such as fornication, depression, girls running away from their families house, Shiyook marrying girls without having wali (guardians), guys taking advantage of innocent girls, and much more. Ask the Shiyok and Psychologists about the cases that they see, I know of stories that are terrifying.
There are a lot of pressure on single brothers out there. Giving the society we live in, we are faced with sexual pressure to the max, add to that financial instability (given that the brother is in still in the beginning of his career), along with his own insecurities, one can conclude that making marriage harder is a lose-lose situation for the brothers and for the future inlaws. That is because the longer the brothers delay their marriage, the longer the sisters will stay single. So both ends will lose on a few years of their lives due to some materialisitic (which will soon be fixed once the brother jump starts his career) issues.
Hint: Make sure to read the comments as well - very thought provoking with some comic relief now and then.