{"id":2297,"date":"2019-08-22T03:32:46","date_gmt":"2019-08-22T03:32:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/?p=2297"},"modified":"2019-08-22T16:44:33","modified_gmt":"2019-08-22T16:44:33","slug":"not-your-parents-marriage-advice-for-muslim-relationships-in-the-modern-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/2019\/08\/22\/not-your-parents-marriage-advice-for-muslim-relationships-in-the-modern-era\/","title":{"rendered":"Not Your Parents\u2019 Marriage \u2013 Advice for Muslim Relationships in the Modern Era"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Garden District, New Orleans. Photo by Zainab F. Chaudary <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Editorial Note: Zainab F. Chaudary wrote a post, \u201cGirl Bachelor\u201d for the Love, InshAllah blog that struck a real nerve with readers around the world. What is wrong with choosing yourself? Making yourself a priority, and then being open to a relationship. Why are we still wringing our hands over a purported Muslim marriage crisis? Maybe our approach needs to change. Here, she explores this subject more and maps out<\/g> those ways to change our approach to marriage and relationships.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Zainab F. Chaudary<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Close your eyes and imagine for a moment what your life would look \nlike if you knew you\u2019d never find romantic love. What would you do \ndifferently? What would fulfill you? How would you feel about where you \nare now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thought Catalog\u00a0posited a similar conceit in a recent blog post. The takeaway question was: why do so many of us stop to wait for our real lives to begin?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the marriage question is not one the Muslim-American community has a monopoly on, it is the one that defines much of our internal angst. Over the past few weeks,\u00a0three of us\u00a0have\u00a0tackled how to perceive\u00a0the\u00a0single life\u00a0in the face of community stigma, but none of us have talked about solutions. On this front, I suspect, there is still much to say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a wonderfully kind, thoughtful response from a 34-year-old \nsingle Muslim man to my last piece that set off this reflection. He had \nfollow-up questions, and in trying to come up with an engaged response, I\n found myself ruminating. And in ruminating, I found a whole \u2018nother \npost on my hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This \u201cmarriage problem\u201d is no longer constrained around single Muslim\n men and women of a certain age; its impact has bled into other \ngenerations, apparent in the severe anxiety of our elders and the \nnervous angst of our youngsters. It is also negatively impacting other \nareas \u2013 sociological, anthropological \u2013 and impeding our progress in \nsociety as a whole. So how do we fix this? Let me count the ways\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Discard the Superficial<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Old school arranged marriages followed our parents here; they built \ntheir marriages on the foundations of their parents\u2019 intuition. Then \nthey came here and had to struggle \u2013 to build jobs, careers, and \nfamilies from scratch, with little guidance. Somewhere along this uphill\n climb, and in fact because of it, our well-meaning parents added \nunnecessary items to the criteria of what makes a \u201cgood\u201d spouse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are the things we must keep: attraction. Not a myopic concept \nof beauty\u2013 not the wheatish-complexioned, rail-thin trophy wife or the \ntall, muscular, handsome husband we are expected to find \u2013 but the \nperson we as individuals find attractive. I like wiry, sarcastic, kinda \ngangly nerds. My friend likes shorter, stocky romantic-types. There is \nno one-size-fits-all beauty standard \u2013 it\u2019s easy to forget that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Along with attraction, keep intellect. Mutual respect. Honesty. \nCandor. Spirituality. Know all the while that relationships shift and \npeople grow, but foundations hold. Know that he\u2019ll get fat and have an \nendearing bald patch. Know that she may grapple with her belief in God. \nKnow that you both will have less time to read about the world when your\n colicky 1-year-old keeps you up at night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Things to discard: what they do for a living. Enough<\/em> with \nthe \u201conly doctors\/lawyers\/engineers need apply.\u201d What race they are. \nWhat ethnicity they are. What goddamn language system their family comes\n from (seriously folks, his family\u2019s Sindhi, hers is Punjabi, and that \nwon\u2019t work? Because hey parents, they both barely manage Urdu<\/strong> sometimes).\n How big a house, how expensive a car, how large the bank account, how \nround her chappattis and how fair his skin. No. X this out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This narrow-minded superficiality is taking a toll on our community. We do not encourage deviants, yet variation \u2013 a diversification of ideas and career paths, a healthy dose of creativity \u2013 is what drives evolution and progress. The pressure to fulfill material criteria, to check off boxes in order to be \u201cchosen\u201d during our most formative years is leaving scars on our community. We are growing up insecure in a world where we must be confident in order to carve out a space<\/g> in the tapestry of America.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Know that Love is Chance \u2026 and Love is Work<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIsn\u2019t that how falling in love so often works? Some stranger \nappears out of nowhere and becomes a fixed star in your universe.\u201d <\/em>
\n\u2015 Kate Bollick<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Love, I\u2019ve found, is a collection of tiny \ncoincidences that lead to a collision. You can\u2019t predict or force it, \nand desperation bleeds through. Love is driven by a little magic, a \nlittle compatibility, and a lot of timing, of being in the right place \nat the right time \u2013 geographically, temporally, mentally, emotionally. \nMy coupled friends \u2013 Muslim and non-Muslim alike \u2013 tell stories of how \nthey met, and some are downright miraculous. The best love stories are \nthe ones where people look a little flabbergasted at their luck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And once you find it, life doesn\u2019t get wrapped up with a special red \nbow that reads \u201cAnd they lived happily ever after.\u201d Maintaining love is \nwork.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tend to Yourself First<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Greek mythology says that all humans were born with male and female \nparts, each person a perfect whole\u2026until they angered the gods and were \ntorn asunder, doomed to roam the earth looking for their ghosting other \nhalf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s nice, but it\u2019s BS. It\u2019s not even romantic. Wrestle your demons first. You\n are not two half-people coming together to complete one another, but \ntwo whole people coming together to enhance one another.<\/em>Be\n comfortable with your solitude. A German friend once confessed to me \nthat he was a serial dater because he hated being alone. Be not afraid \nof your alone-ness. Live a life that is truly full \u2013 not one that you \nfill with things to pass the time as you wait (trust me, we know the \ndifference between a genuine vacation smile and a \u201clook at me and see \nhow great my life is!\u201d vacation smile). Do meaningful work that \ngratifies you intellectually and spiritually, and build deep, abiding \nfriendships and relationships that sustain you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Understand the Broader Societal Construct<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deviants are a problem specific to the Muslim community (see above). But the\u00a0falling marriage rates, the larger numbers of\u00a0single women, the\u00a0lower birth rate, and the\u00a0confusion of dating in the digital age? These are broader societal changes that are the result of higher education and higher\u00a0income rates for women, and a slow but steady gender equalization. STOP THE HAND WRINGING. The hysteria of this being a Muslim-specific problem ignores the larger context we live in today, and keeping those comparisons in mind will help us regain sanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Get to Know People, Not Their Potential<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we were younger, cross-gender relationships came easier. Marriage was miles away, friendships were simple. Now when I attend\u00a0Muslim events, every interaction is fraught, every conversation loaded. The stakes seem high, the competition and pressure even higher. How can normal, healthy relationships bloom from this? We need our professional events, our spiritual events, our networking events to be about an actual exchange of ideas, not an exchange of phone numbers, and when we do attend dating events, we need to take the word \u201cmatrimonial\u201d out of the equation and check our expectations at the door. Schizophrenic notions of waiting and dating to get to know each other, while also aiming straight for marriage are contradictory and maddening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I stick to my premise that marriage is a want, not a need, something \nearned, not something guaranteed. Marriage is not for all of us, \nchildren are not for all of us, and all of this starts with one thing: \nhonesty. I\u2019ll channel Reagan when I say \u201cMuslim community: it\u2019s time to \ntear down these walls.\u201d It\u2019s time to build anew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zainab Chaudary<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0works in PR and advocacy communications by day, and is a writer and geek by night. Her blog,\u00a0The Memorist, ruminates upon travel, religion, science, relationships, and the past, present, and future experiences that make up a life. She tweets\u00a0@TheMemorist. This post first appeared on Altmuslimah, which is not affiliated with Altmuslim.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editorial Note: Zainab F. Chaudary wrote a post, \u201cGirl Bachelor\u201d for the Love, InshAllah blog that struck a real nerve with readers around the world. What is wrong with choosing yourself? Making yourself a priority, and then being open to a relationship. Why are we still wringing our hands over a purported Muslim marriage crisis? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2305,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[321,1],"tags":[1150,1149,1155,1151],"class_list":["post-2297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-for-singles","category-uncategorized","tag-dating-apps-for-muslims","tag-dating-muslims","tag-muslim-websites-for-marriage","tag-online-dating-service-for-muslims"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2297"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2312,"href":"https:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2297\/revisions\/2312"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}