Time tells managing family issues

WE ALL HAVE FAMILY ISSUES THE WAY WE MANAGE THEM CAN MAKE US DIFFERENT

TIME TELLS We All Have Family Issues.

The Way We Manage Them Can Make Us Different

Managing Family Issues

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Table of contents Foreword

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1. The problem with family problems

1

2. Let wife breathe freely

5

3. Patience with family - its right, not a favour

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4. Make housewife aware… how busy a work place can be

12

5. Let wife play also mother to husband – when both are aged and lonely

15

6. Cancellation of betrothal is preferable to divorce !

17

7. Engagement, Honeymoon and their dangers

19

8. Men are the guardian of women and yet...

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9. Personal independence of judgement

26

10. Mother’s true love for son is sharing hers with his wife

29

11. Women’s rights over men’s in a family

31

12. When children’s “aunty” becomes “mom”

34

13. Sudden death in family

38

14. Divorce a compelling solution; not a gamble option

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15. An enemy that can wreck every family – when not restrained

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Table of contents 16. Pat on both cheeks – for different reasons

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17. Cases of depression mishandled in family

59

18. Gaining vision from family history

63

19. Self-labour – a sign of family “khandani” (nobility)

66

20. When privileged to grow old

71

21. When meals in family become a “drab” of eating

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22. Family business risks family relation unless ….

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23. Youth in a family

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24. When love becomes potential liability for daughter

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25. Childhood nickname can originate in family

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26. Matrimony ? let “chemistry” come into play

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27. When wife the only source of emotional support

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28. Disciplinarian parents on the wrong footing

96

29. Favouring boys is wronging girls among children

99

30. When time-keeping becomes a contentious family issue 102

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FOREWORD In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful.

“Time Tells” are mere two simple words, but they speak volumes when they form a title to a book, which is first of its kind for the community in the recent time.

The book has 30 Parts, almost each with such episodes as if these were already the existing concerns of the readers’ own families.

The best love and concern we have are for our families. The most common issues in life are of families. The easiest issues to handle in life are those of families. And yet, these are the issues which are let to develop into problems while the intentions were good for solving them.

The mistakes that creep in are simple but not that simple to recognize.

Times later tell how the issues could have been avoided from surfacing, and addressed differently when surfaced.

The consequences in a wide ramification to affect the lives of others innocent linger on in succeeding generations while the actors at the scene of the time may no longer be around to atone for the wrongs inflicted on the victims in the family and others. But Time never fails to Tell.

“He utters not a word but there is by him a watcher at hand” (Sura Qaaf Verse 18). Let us beware that mere a word wrongly used unwisely at the time, can wreck or split a family.

This book may prove very useful for gaining an insight into addressing timely well “family issues” of various shades arising at various times.

Part One suffices to high-light more the purpose for the book.

The viewpoints presented are from the perspectives which are in some parts, not all, more of relevance, in traditions, to the community residing in the East.

Mohamed A. Khalfan. makfan@raha.com Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

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THE PROBLEM WITH FAMILY PROBLEMS

Small family issues are common as hiccups in life but family problems are not and must not be mistaken as mere small issues.

However, there can be a thin line between these two.

No amicable solution is possible without first making a diagnosis of whether it is a delicate family problem or a common family issue as each requires a different tact and approach for address.

It is a family issue when the wife is angry because the husband did not make a telephone call from his work-place to ask if she was feeling better. But it is a family problem if the wife gets angry – very angry – because the husband made a rare surprise telephone call to find out if she was at home - and well. She had not said that she was unwell when he left for his work place.

The father attempting to reunite his daughter with her husband after a short separation has a problem. However, the father who successfully “faced” the problem should fear a recurrence of the problem.

And the father who successfully “managed” the problem should have much less fear.

The Difference The difference is in the thoughts, which are formulated, the consequent words selected and used and the body language applied in solving the problem when it is seen as needing to be “faced” and the same one seen as needing to be “managed”.

A father who thinks he has to “face” the problem in the belief that it does not happen elsewhere has to blame his pessimist mindManaging Family Issues

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frame, and the other father who wants to “manage� the problem knowing that it is common in a family life has to bless his optimist mind-frame.

Often a problem appears much bigger than it is when it first makes a sudden ugly appearance. Therefore, rash decisions are likely or reactions are steered inconsistent with the seriousness of the problem, which is less, only to worsen the problem.

And there is yet another scenario. It is of course, a sign of natural concern to have a fear of a problem, which seems likely to arise, but there is no certainty of it. The problem may indeed show up, if the fear was excessive or caused by a wrong speculation and if a reaction was set in motion when there was no need for it at that point of time or at all.

Human society is characterised by having various types of problems. These can include social, economic, financial, business, political and ideological ones, but the easiest ones to solve are the family problems, if a right choice of approach and its timing is clicked because normally the concern for a solution is common and sincere. And yet these problems evade solutions because of the human weakness of letting emotions erupt and dictate judgment without a small break for a clear calculated thought over it, and then such judgment is always flawed if not biased.

Sobriety It is a cool and composed mind of shared responsibility, working however fast, which musters sobriety to make a solution to happen.

The worst part is to reveal the existence of the problem outside the family, not for seeking advices or guidance discreetly but only to solicit the sentiments of support or sympathy in favour of one party or member of the family against the other party or other members.

The result is the flying rounds of distortion of the information over the problem, and the likely result is anything but a solution to the problem.

So if one needs a Family Life one should know about the attendant 2

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possibilities of Family Problems and know even better how to “manage” and not “fear” them.

However, there can never be a solution to a problem which exists in imagination or it is an illusion or the one that is wished it was there.

Such a state is by itself a serious problem. A spiritual therapy and not a psychiatric one is required. And it is not difficult to find the “patient” for the therapy in a family because in every big family there are angels and a demon. Emotions, eruptive and excessive, are the demon.

Examples There are examples of admission later that a Family Problem could have been approached or addressed differently, and the disastrous results avoided. And yet, there are also examples of more pain inflicted because a problem was dragged on in a futile attempt for an easy solution when there was none for the liking and the good of all.

There is a catalogue of problems, which are common. The most common family problems are connected with unfair conduct or weak commitment to matrimonial life or mistrust arising from dealings in a business or investment partnership between members of a family., unfair apportioning of house chores in an extended family, or habitual extravagance by one or more members in the family from the family funds.

Another common issue is for the natural changing behaviors and the shifting perspectives of the parents to be misunderstood as they grow very old.

Inheritance The worst is however, when it comes to sharing of inheritance where a member dies intestate. It is essential that there be the culture of heeding to the Islamic rules of writing and leaving Wills and also reducing into writing any verbal directives or long intentions regarding gifting of any assets or jewellery, after death, to anyone Managing Family Issues

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who is not an heir or acknowledgement of outstanding debts due to other members in the family.

There is one more thing to be noted. It is known that there is normally love for each others in a family. And indeed, it is this love which bonds the members together as a sustainable family.

The problem arises where there is lack of the culture of showing that love by expression and action whenever opportunities present themselves, and such opportunities are not few or far in between where true love resonates in a family.

As a result, good intentions are likely to be misunderstood and fair actions to be misinterpreted to give rise to a family problem.

It is sometimes the head of a family or mostly men in the family who seem to take for granted that the love they have is obviously or strongly and assuredly “felt� by others in the family.

There is nothing so precious for a family as show of love and concern that exist for one another; and yet, there is nothing so disastrous as a family problem that should not have been there and now stubbornly defies a solution.

The choice is there. The wrong one is the real problem with the Family Problems.

Almost all have family issues. The way we manage them is what will make us fortunately different from others.

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LET WIFE BREATHE FREELY

You are a housewife, if you who are reading this are one. You feel anxious when your husband is late in coming back home. And yet when he is around at home, you feel that your sense of being “free” in the house is constrained. You feel a vague sense of relief mixed with that of guilt when he leaves the house for his workplace despite your intense love for him; and it has not crossed your mind to want to know why.

You feel an oppressive air reigning in the house and it bites you when your husband is unusually quiet which is a signal to you that he is in a state of worry or anger or apprehension and you do not know why though you are sure that the cause, whatever, is outside the house and you have nothing to do with it. You glare with anger at the children if they make the usual noise around the house on such occasions.

You see your husband “freer” than you are in the house. You hesitate to suggest some thing bold or you worry over how your husband will react if the decision you have made and acted upon is wrong; and yet you know that your husband is not concerned about your opinion if he wants to make a decision, nor about your judgment if he has made a wrong one.

The unfortunate thing for you is to believe that this self-intimidation is normal with almost all housewives except where the husband is a ‘hubby’ (single mindedly obedient to wife). The fact is clear. This is a marital pressure but you cannot define or realize it. If you think and accept it as a part of living for a good obedient wife you are wrong.

Loser is Family A housewife who lets herself suffer marital pressure can not make Managing Family Issues

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a good mother or wife or a daughter-in-law and the children she brings up cannot be mentally positively influenced. The loser is the family in general and the husband in particular. He must be missing the wife’s rare light laughter and not knowing why.

It is not certain that the wife who goes for a workplace is exception to this situation. It can be a culture of gender docility that vaguely haunts women, particularly any wife, in general, without however a true love between the spouses or a lack of it having anything to do with it.

It is pity therefore that the husband is in most cases unaware of this marital pressure to which the wife at home is prone, or if he is, he thinks it normal for a home. He takes the wife’s docility as part of her loving and perhaps he gratefully senses satisfaction from it.

There is another aspect of the effect of this vague and inexplicable pressure felt by the wife. Let us consider the following scenario: The wife was on the path of a slow recovery from jaundice with a strict adherence to her doctor’s advice for a complete rest and restricted diet except for one small omission. She left home once to visit a bereaved family on hearing of a death in the family.

Emotional Outbursts Even after that, the recovery seemed still well on the track until the time when the husband heard about her brief visit out when he returned from a trip. He exploded with emotional outbursts accusing the wife of endangering her life by stupidity.

Obviously, the relation became strained temporarily between the spouses. With no house chores in hand, the wife had all the time for brooding over the strained relation.

On the other side, the doctor was mystified to notice that the patient who had been on the path of recovery was now showing serious signs of set-backs in the results of the tests taken at regular short intervals.

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No wonder, there is an explanation for this. A recent research has revealed that wound healing rate is slower where a spouse has a marital stress and that the slow healing or curing rate for other diseases too cannot be ruled out in similar circumstances.

Marital Stress It can be presumed from this revelation that a healing rate and response to a medical treatment is likely to be adversely affected while a couple suffers a strained relation. It can be worse where a marital stress on the part of the wife is a continuous pattern of her life and accepted as part of a normal role of a wife in a culture of a community.

The toll inflicted therefore can be worse during the period of the wife’s pregnancy and breast-feeding. The physical and mental health of suckling children can be at stake as a likely consequence.

You are a husband if you who are reading this are one. Know that there can be an elusive culture of meekness crept in from selfintimidation or otherwise, which vaguely haunts the wife without both the spouses being aware of it. Both breathe from the same air in the house except that the wife does it less freely.

True love is firstly knowing the natural and pre-acquired weaknesses of the wife and then providing support of strength and not exploiting or ignoring them. Not knowing this is a bigger weakness on the part of the husband. In the complexities of life there is always a price paid in the family for these weaknesses among any of its members; if it were only possible to know when, how and on what score the price is paid.

This life is, after all, a fleeting moment; the best part of which is the marital life – for those who deserve it. Marital life is a journey enjoyed as long as the road stretches ahead. And yet, for others, it can be a journey by a detour through a rough bumpy road and they cannot enjoy the scenery as they journey along.

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3

PATIENCE WITH FAMILY ITS RIGHT, NOT A FAVOUR

The driver in a car hooted his car-horn to indicate his impatience to the driver in the car in front. He did it not to prompt the front car-driver to drive on like it is done when the road ahead is already clear. It was because a passenger was seen being let to alight from the front car.

The “front car driver” let the passenger alight at that point of time because it was convenient for the passenger to do so as the car had to halt anyway to await the traffic green light signal clearance.

It is known that it normally takes less than 10 seconds for a passenger to alight and any frantically impatient hooting would make no difference in the human speed and duration possible for a person to alight from a car. And yet during that period of time the impatient driver gave one additional honk which was longer to indicate now his anger.

In the meantime, the other motorists behind not knowing that it was the traffic at a junction which had caused a halt joined the “impatient car driver” in a noisy chorus of honking their horn. He took this as a support for his honking.

False Authority A control of the steering wheel with the horn gadget a finger-tip away gave the rear car driver a “sense of power”. He finds that he must use it even when it is not due - to have the feel of that power. Besides, his confinement in his car offers him also a sense of physical security.

If it were a cart-pusher instead who was obstructed behind by the front car he would not have demonstrated a similar frantic 8

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impatience though he laboured physically with goods laden for delivery while he is also under the hot sun. He has no gadgets in his control to give him a false status of authority or a “sense of power”.

We do come across such occasions of witnessing others’ impatience often while we take a ride as a passenger. The one who is behind the steering wheel shows immediately his impatience with his emotions heightened as soon as a vehicle in front momentarily halts for reasons known to him as valid or normal.

What is however, important to note is that this is not the behaviour of all drivers. There are those, and not a few, who see such occasions not even as a test for patience because these are normal unless it involved a pedestrian engaged in talking with a car - driver a few seconds longer while the traffic should be moving on again.

It is on such occasions of a heavy traffic, that we get to know who among the drivers, we get a ride with, are humble and refined in behaviour through demonstration of patience, and who are not.

But then there are even worse examples found in our homes. The person can be the father or the husband or any one else who is the head in a family; He too feels a “sense of power” and applies it, as a habit, in dealing with his family.

The exercise of his power over the meek family is seen in terms of his impatience rising to anger in almost daily incidents for no valid or sane reason. There can only be one valid reason excusable though - lack of sanity beyond his control - only if he admits it. He will not. But then he is the boss and knows that all bosses must be respected, regardless of their worth in character and disposition.

Not Learned So he rings the door bell at his house and impatiently does it immediately again once or twice even though he knows of the time taken normally to answer the bell quickly. He does not learn. His false sense of power has the better of him.

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Or the one who sits at the dining table earlier at a time of his choice without a prior notice, and shouts if he is not served immediately or quickly, when it takes a few minutes for the food to be re-heated.

Or he impatiently shouts for his ironed pyjama and a bathing towel while at the door of bathroom.

Worse still, he impatiently honks the horn repeatedly as soon as he arrives in his car to pick a member of the family as if expecting the member to jump down from a balcony instead of descending the staircase. His impatience is even greater if he arrives either earlier or without a prior time having been set and he is made to wait a couple of minutes longer.

They are mostly the types who never undertake self-service like others in fixing themselves a meal already cooked, or preparing themselves for the daily shower or volunteering to answer the door-bell. Doing these is against their nature of being self-centred when they have nothing else real worthy to fall on It makes no difference in their behavior even if they knew of the duration, which is necessary for a task they ask to be done. It does not cross their mind that they are oppressive to the family and there are many others to whom patience comes naturally without being conscious or deliberate about it.

The sad part of the whole thing is that persons with impatience, are not aware that their behaviour is not fair and that many others in the same position behave differently, and more, with compassion to the family even if a delay occasioned is not normal.

Part of Life The situation is even worse where a family suffering from such behaviour of impatience at the hands of the head of the family is also agonized by poverty. His worries because of poverty make his patience run thin. The incidents of even small delays for however valid reasons become intolerable and the members of the family are made to feel humiliated on a regular basis as part of their life.

We do know that the sin of Haq un Naas (the Rights and Dues of 10

Managing Family Issues

Others) will be one of the major sins that will haunt us after death unless forgiven by the parties sinned at. Instead of the false sense of power, the head of a family is required to have a sense of duty towards his family. One aspect of that duty is compassion as the family’s right.

This life is but a fleeting moment; and we are soon gone. There are in contrast those among the heads of family who are tearfully missed whenever they are mentioned in the family after they are gone. Their fragrance left behind lingers on, They took compassion as their family’s right and not a favour. Impatience over service or attention for them at homes had no room in their compassion.

Let us remember, your measure as a compassionate person is by a yard-stick of the number of things you can easily do at home for yourself instead of burdening your family and then paying them back with the outbursts of impatience.

In conclusion, impatience as a habit is a trait of weakness in a person. It gives the sign that he lacks both, self-confidence and a sense of security. And therefore, without any need for a hurry, he jumps a queue, wriggles in or out through a crowded mosque entrance and cuts you short before you complete what you are saying to him and is therefore prone to jumping on a conclusion which is not, and cannot be, safe and sound.

He is not a person who can build up for himself a refined personality with a congenial disposition. He can however be educated and seem pious which camouflages his true-self.

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4

MAKE HOUSEWIFE AWARE HOW BUSY A WORK PLACE CAN BE

When questioned by the wife, the husband apologetically admits to her upon his return from the work-place that he entirely forgot to send someone on an errand, which she had requested him to do.

He would not however point out in defence that he was more pressed with the amount of work that day. He knew the wife would argue by reminding him that she too remained under the pressure of the house chores and children-care – everyday, including Sundays!

He would not also point out that the work assigned by her was not that important that could not wait for the next day. If he did, he would lose the argument in the debate as to whose work was more important - hers or his! Could he go on working with the empty stomach - just to face only one example in her argument!

Such scenarios and the pattern of dialogue are not uncommon where the wife is a housewife who is only focused on the housewifery.

Her home is her small but important world and she perceives the house-chores as the real challenge in life and aims at perfection.

Small World A great majority of the families in our community have housewives.

They are wrapped up in their own small world, otherwise called “home” which is her domain while unaware of the challenges and problems faced by the head of the family in the daily occupation of making out a living for the family. They are not aware that the pressure of work at the work-place descends in waves with unpredictable quantum and with it, there is the mental stress which has its toll.

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The faint idea, which a housewife has about the pressure of work a male member in the family bears, is what she perceives on the surface when she visits shops. What she finds there is an easy occupation for men, leisurely selling items and collecting money.

She takes that as a normal example of occupation believing that it prevails everywhere including the offices.

A housewife while quite experienced in her rounds of shopping would not be aware that even behind the shop there is an office frantically busy with a catalogue of office work like compliance of trade regulations and taxation, assessing fluctuating financial liquidity position, banking work, ordering of goods to replenish the stock, queries from the accountant, auditors or tax departments, disputes over deliveries or quality of goods, etc.

Not Aware A housewife is not aware that in commercial and industrial offices, the “normal� pressure of work is even greater, especially where the place of work is short of staff.

It is therefore the duty of the husband or the head of the family to acquaint the housewife in the family with the normalcy of the nature and pressure of work at the work place.

This information will enable the housewife to establish priorities.

She would know when it is not necessary to get what household errand to be handled by the husband. She will learn to manage most of the errands and work on her own without adding pressure on the husband at his work-place.

The improvement will be remarkable. The wife will prove herself more dependable and therefore seen more lovable. The daughters in the family will copy the example of the mother in their married life and assume the household responsibility with fair degrees of self-reliance.

Let us remember that wife is what the husband makes her. The Managing Family Issues

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exercise has however to begin much early after the marriage.

The alternative for the husband is to pretend that he is tired dead tired - when he comes back home from the work place. This deception does not work for long and it is, anyway, not healthy for a married life.

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LET WIFE PLAY ALSO MOTHER TO HUSBAND WHEN BOTH ARE AGED & LONELY

“You keep dominating! I do not need to be told what time of the day to take bath and what dress to put on! I am not a child! I am a grandfather” After a pause, the husband added softly: “You were not like that before”. This was a retort from the husband to his wife, both advanced in age.

A few weeks back there was a similar emotional protestation from the husband when he could not find his old pair of shoes. The wife had thrown them away because they were worn out and a disgrace in public even though they were very comfortable to him.

The wife, now a grandmother, was indeed not like that before.

If that fact was pondered upon, the husband would have found that the wife was behaving normally and therefore naturally as she grew older.

It is common to find that a wife who was not dominating on her husband by her nature when she was a young mother did play her domineering role of motherhood, like all mothers do, on her children, instructing them on the “dos” and “don’ts”.

A Substitute However, as no womanhood is complete without motherhood, the wife wants to continue to play a mother. Therefore, when the children are grown up and separated from the parents to establish their own homes, in the same city or elsewhere, the wife is found to continue playing the role of a mother, and the husband tends to Managing Family Issues

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become a substitute for the children as her maternal beneficiary.

It is not surprising to see that the wife’s concern for the well being of the husband is now more motherly. She would tuck in the husband comfortably well if he was careless with the blanket or mosquito net covering when he retired to bed.

It is therefore inconsiderate on the part of the husband if he rejected or rebelled against the overtures of the wife who was now assuming also the kindness and concern of a mother.

A couple growing old and now on their own with the parental obligations fulfilled need even a better mutual understanding than before for an inter complementally emotional support.

The support from the aged wife in the house is even more important.

Let her transfer her motherly attention and concern from the children, now no more under her care, to the aged husband. To interpret the motherly overtures as domineering is a short sight.

Behind every old but seemingly organized husband is likely to be the exhausted wife. She likes it.

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6

CANCELLATION OF BETROTHAL IS PREFERABLE TO DIVORCE!

The youthful girl kept her ears strained towards the door which was ajar and connecting to the adjacent room. She was attempting to catch some significant words coming from the room.

There was a debate going on with arguments exchanged for and against dissolution of the girl’s engagement for marriage.

The girl herself was confused and indecisive not knowing what decision would be sound or safer.

The tradition of betrothal or “engagement” as commonly known, prior to marriage of a couple is prevalent in a broader society.

A betrothal is celebrated publicly by the families intending to establish a marital relation between the couple as if to give signal to other prospective or intending suitors to look now elsewhere.

The positive aspect of the tradition of “engagement” is that the couple and their respective families get to know each other better and cultivate mutual trust before marriage is contracted.

It is therefore quite appropriate if the engagement is made public with ceremonies and attendant with religious traditions to give some solemn meaning to the occasion.

An engagement ceremony is also a source of happiness because the occasion is a run-up to even a much happier one to follow in due time: and that is marriage.

It is therefore but natural that no party would like to see the feeling of happiness and relief disturbed while both are anxiously looking forward to the big and memorable occasion.

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Once the engagement becomes known, well-wishers come forward with felicitation. And yet, a couple of them or more feeling concerned may advise some further discreet investigation. And indeed, this is the benefit for an interim period of engagement prior to marriage.

Feeble Mind There is also a natural tendency to want to shrug off, or indeed to avoid coming across, any signs or manifestation which may raise concern or doubts over the mutual compatibility of the couple, or over the suitability of the fiancÊ (the boy) in the eyes of the girl’s family. Such a tendency or line of approach suggests a feeble mind and a passive approach. A hope that things will take care of themselves while the signals strongly indicate that there could well be a disaster in the offing is being unkind to the couple.

Similarly there can be another weakness equally disastrous. The mind would shut out the thought of the possibility of having ever to dissolve the engagement for the mere scare of the consequent scandal or disgrace or stigma in the community.

Under the circumstances when there unfortunately arises a compelling situation, there is a hesitation in forming a decision for dissolution of the engagement. Instead false faith is placed, despite the nagging sense of apprehension.

More often a misplaced faith is let to lead and it can lead to a fate that was not anticipated.

Engagement is not an irreversible contract for a marriage. It is an intention for it.

Fortunately, however the situations which arise to compel dissolution of engagements are few and far in between. The decision for dissolution of any engagement has to be well grounded.

Thoughtless dissolution can also spell misfortune for one of the couple or both.

The message however is that dissolution is preferable to a nagging or distinct fear of a failure of a marriage.

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7

ENGAGEMENT, HONEYMOON & THEIR DANGERS

A fiancé talking to his fiancée over a long distance telephone network was enquiring if she had received his e-mail sent the evening before.

The fiancée in her twenties explained that as she was back home unexpectedly late that night she had not accessed her emails until that early morning.

The fiancé feeling concerned asked probing questions: How much late was she? Who were the family she visited? What was the occasion? Was she alone or accompanied? Was it safe to be out so late? It was obvious that he was questioning her parents’ discretion.

The most “romantic” phases of life are two whose durations are short: One is the period of engagement to marry, and the other, the period immediately after the marriage. The first gives rise to a dream and the other registers its fulfilment.

And yet, romantic as the phases may be, they are wrought with lurking dangers; -- one potential danger is of a break-up when the reason for it can be self-blamed.

When the parents have been taking care of their daughter for about 20 years, there should have been no valid cause for concern on the part of the fiancé’; and then, she was not his wife yet.

True, love produces concern for the loved one but that concern on each occasion has its limitation, which varies according to the circumstances and situations. In this situation, the daily life of his fiancée was not yet his responsibility and the parents knew better about their responsibility for their daughter.

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This concern can arise also where both, the fiancé and the fiancée live in a same town. If the concern is left uncontrolled this can make the fiancée’s family apprehensive over the sense of judgment of the person intending to marry their daughter.

Scary Thought The thoughts, which can haunt are: Is it a revelation of an attitude of possessiveness as if to the fiancé a wife is only a mindless member in a family who has to be chaperoned and watched over for her safety. Or is he going to be bossy over her - all around the clock, or hopefully, is his maturity still catching up while he is still in his early twenties. And worse still, a hesitant scary thought - will he make a good husband if he does not make a good fiancé.

Let us examine other examples of possible gross indiscretion when the new budding romantic relation is delicately poised while each partner luxuriates in their respective dreams.

The fiancé informs the fiancée, which he thinks to be doing so casually, about certain strict rules or routines – not common in other families – which she will be required to observe in his family after the marriage. Was he cautioning her with something haunting him in the back of his mind, or does he doubt her capacity or willingness to adapt or comply? This information, if well sought, could have waited for later, most appropriately after the marriage.

One more example of indiscretion. One of them mentions to the other about a dislike his or her family has for certain relatives, and suggests perhaps he or she may as well know this from now and be cautious about them. Grandeur of a nuptial dream is belittled by a petty mind.

Worse still; the fiancé insists on meeting her when she disapproves of it or knows that her parents would not approve of it, and then he interprets the refusal as disrespect.

Love should be delicately handled during the engagement period when they have yet to know each other adequately to establish 20

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equilibrium of common thoughts and stance. It is like a tight rope balancing. Many a time words are said to impress, and more words to over-impress and a wrong word or two may slip out to lend a wrong perception of one’s personality.

Secondary Unless trust is a linkage to the love one has for the other, and unless also allowances are made over wrong words accidentally said, prolonged talks of romance can wait for later – though the use of words would seem to be secondary after the marriage anyway.

There is a hadith: “Aksarul khataya bi Lisanin” (“Most mistakes are by the tongue”) And yet, if the couple must talk and talk long, while they are not married yet, prudence demands that subjects of confidential nature should be avoided or side tracked if raised by one. These include, whose other proposals or offers of marriage were received.

The subject of salary or income, or the personal or family’s financial means, educational qualifications where these are humble, should be avoided if these information though pertinent, were not elicited earlier when due and proper - prior to the engagement.

Indeed, any other subjects which can prompt an undue self overestimation or weak self-defence with lies in order keep up with one’s pride must not be raised. Mostly, truth becomes known after the marriage anyway only to harm credibility.

As for the other stint which is the period which comes soon after the marriage, it is but natural that each would want to see if the other grabs every opportunity as it presents itself of demonstrating one’s love for the other by words and deeds for a satisfaction of repeated assurances of love.

However, the husband has to be more conscious of this need from the wife when she as a new arrival in the family seeks a sense of security through the husband’s profuse expression of love. And this love must be appropriately demonstrated also in the presence of Managing Family Issues

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his family members. She needs time to settle among the new faces with her emotions un-bruised and self-pride intact. The pressure is great where she is a new member in a large extended family.

Show of Concern In fact, any one of the couple may create a “circumstance”, more than once, such as would seem genuinely evolved - in which he or she would like to see that there is a show of concern based on love from the other – again as a need for reassurance.

And how true! There is a mixture of happiness and relief for the wife when the husband gives her a call from his work-place to enquire if she was feeling better from her headache – the first headache – a mild one though - a few days after the marriage. She had looked forward to his call.

And how true! On another occasion of a headache two years later, there was a mixture of amusement and annoyance to the wife when he unexpectedly called to find out about her headache. She mocked: “But it is only a headache, dear, or does it kill?” On the contrary, the wife became suspicious over the sudden show of love where there was no occasion for it.

It would however be unfair for the husband to expect the wife to fret and fuss over his slight indisposition, like a pampering mother does when her son or daughter is unwell. And if the wife does, it can be detected as a pretence.

Mutual love with trust is the key. But then this combination is a product of wisdom and wisdom must take into account the human nature of the need for reassurances of love.

A husband has always a wider responsibility placed on him by a divine design throughout the time of married life than the one on a wife. Allah swt has placed men as guardian of women (Q.4.34).

Men have been created with the nature of wanting to take care of women, provide for them and protect them from harm while women have the emotional nature of wanting and needing to feel 22

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that they are taken care of and protected.

It is this respective complementally active and passive role of one towards the other, which brings to fruition the mutual “feel” of “love and compassion” between a husband and a wife, which Allah swt mentions in the Holy Quran verse 30:21. The verse states “And one of His signs is that He created mates for you from yourselves that you may find rest in them; and He put between you love and compassion. Most surely, there are signs in this for a people who reflect.”

The verse significantly ends as a challenge for us to reflect on how the mutual “love and compassion” need work on one another.

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8

MEN ARE THE GUARDIAN OF WOMEN AND YET…

There is a kind of a strange culture with some men. They unnecessarily keep reporting their “normal” business or occupational problems occurring outside home to the women in the family, as if to chastise them with anxieties and get pleasure out of it.

Every business or occupation is subject to problems. A situation arises every now and then in the line of normalcy to give a cause for a temporary anxiety and yet, as always, it is taken care of to await the next one to arise. The cycle is a part of the occupational life, outside home, for men who are engaged in earning a living. This part of the men’s life is of no particular responsibility for women at home, as they too have their shares of anxieties in looking after children and taking care of homes. All adult members in a family, males and females, therefore have their respective roles to fulfil and the relevant concern and anxieties to manage.

It is therefore strange that some men should have the habit or indeed a weakness of informing their mother or wife or both of their occupational problems, as each arises in the normal engagement of the occupation, while fully knowing that it is of no direct concern to the women and therefore, there is nothing or little the women can do to help in terms of ideas or experience.

Worrisome Scenario The women may not be aware that such problems are normal with all others too who are engaged in the field of business or other occupation and are solved. They also cannot grasp the precise nature of every problem they are informed of. Therefore, the uncertainty of the aspects of varieties of problems whose quantum and effects are unknown to them gives them the fear of a serious and worrisome scenario.

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It is very strange however that these very men choose not to let the women share also their joy of the occasions when they have a good news of large profits from their business or occupation- because to them, it is of no concern to women at home!

There can also be those who would either exaggerate or indeed fake a situation of anxiety to bring forth some sympathy of “bicharo” from the women at however, a dear price of subjecting them unnecessarily to the agony of anxieties. Perhaps this tendency is of a psychiatric nature and its origin needs to be traced.

No Other Explanation Such a person as the head of a family is either unkind by nature or lacks sanity. There can be no other explanation.

On the other hand, there are also those saintly men in the family who are compassionate and sane in such matters. Where a situation which gives a cause for real anxiety or disappointment and needs to be reported to the family at home, they make a light presentation of the situation in order to lessen the share of anxiety for the women while taking upon themselves the full brunt of it.

They offer a brave face to the women even where a situation is serious, because often there is little that women can do on their part to help alleviate the situation. The situation is worsened if women get their health affected by anxieties.

Allah swt has placed men as the guardian of women. (Qur’an: Verse 4:34). Men have been created with the nature of wanting to take care of women, provide for them and protect them from harm including physical and mental agony while women have the emotional nature of wanting and needing to feel that they are taken care of and protected by men. It is this respective active and passive roles of one towards the other which fulfils the mutual feel of the “love and compassion” that Allah mentions in the Qur’an verse 30:21. Therefore, the verse then significantly ends as a challenge for pondering: “…most surely, there are signs in this (“love and compassion”) for a people who reflect.”

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9

PERSONAL INDEPENDENCE OF JUDGEMENT

A housewife (un-named) facing a criminal charge wrote in the Q & A legal column of Tanzanian “Daily News” to seek a legal opinion on a possible defence for her in a Court of Law. She asked if her husband could be held solely or more responsible for the beating she had applied on the family’s housemaid which she had to do after a relentless insistence of the furious husband. The wife had already forgiven the housemaid for her negligence which caused a small financial loss to the family. Teaching the housemaid a lesson was not the wife’s prescription for the situation.

A police prosecution with the risk of conviction hanging heavily strained the relation between the spouses much more than would have been the case if the wife had boldly refused to obey the husband..

Here the issue is of a human disposition or inclination for tolerance and compassion which is basically inherent in a human being except that it varies in degrees or shades from person to person.

The spouses cannot have the same degrees or shades.

Besides, this charitable and compassionate inclination cannot be measured or known and compared like a body temperature or blood pressure.

Wisdom Tolerance, forgiveness and an insight into understanding the normal human weaknesses in the face of a fault or negligence or indeed any gross indiscretion are the glowing features of humbleness and compassion, and I would equate these to ‘wisdom’ of a person, whatever may be the religion professed by him.

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However, it is a culture in many families that the wife follows the advice of the husband in matters which concern the family as a whole where the husband too shares the responsibility for the consequences of the advice.

It is however wrong for the husband to mis-use the culture of obedience by even imposing upon the wife the line of reaction she should take where an issue is quite personal like it is between herself and her female neighbour or any of her relatives or indeed any person.

The husband must not encroach into the domain of personal independence of the wife when it comes to her exercising her discretion of reaction or any extent thereof to any given situation which solely concerns her only except a word of advice, whether solicited or not, but the husband must assure her that the final and full decisions are hers.

With this mutual code of conduct on family issues, many a personal relations of the wife with her parents and others will be saved from being soured or severed.

Exceptions However, there are vital exceptions in Islamic terms. The Qur’an says: Men take care of women and protect them. Quran 4:34 .

Here are examples of the nature of issues as exceptions.

It is not a wife’s personal situation demanding her sole discretion how to react if she finds or suspects an evil intention for or against her from any person; Or if she feels a sense of insecurity as a woman in a society; Or if she fails to meet her personal debts owed to any traders for goods purchased for her personal use on credit or if the amounts owed by her are disputed. The husband takes over the role as her guardian and joins her for a decision in solving the situation. The husband is deemed to be sharing the responsibility for the debts the wife incurred for purchases on credit in her name.

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Similarly, while the movement of the wife’s own wealth is her personal matter, her own physical movements outside home is not. Such sharp is the sense of priorities in Islam for a ‘natural’ equilibrium in the differentiation of mutual responsibilities for an orderly concordance in a matrimonial family life.

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10

MOTHER’S TRUE LOVE FOR SON IS SHARING HERS WITH HIS WIFE

A mother who got her son married hands over the routine of house chores to her daughter-in-law. It is a small family.

However, she makes an exception among the house chores. She will prepare and serve breakfast to the son and give him company like she has always done.

Once, the son was to return home late. The mother said she would wait and join him at the late evening meal. She said she always did so.

After a couple of months, the mother went quietly into the couple’s room and sorted out her son’s warm clothes which periodically needed dry cleaning.

The daughter-in-law felt that she was not let to play wife to her husband. Seeing husband off for work after being all together at breakfast, and receiving him back home when late from work are the relished moments for the wife, especially soon after the marriage.

The Fear Frankly, the mother was behaving like mothers would want to, without being conscious that the situation had changed after the marriage. There can be a sub-conscious fear, not uncommon, to the mother. The fear can be that with the son now sharing his love for mother with the wife, what was perceived before as full love for the mother was now partial. She was wrong.

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The mother perhaps thought that by shedding off the son’s dependence on her for all his normal conveniences and leaving the wife to be looking after him was to lose the devotion and love of the son for her. She was again wrong.

A candle does not lose the intensity of its light by lighting another candle.

With the marriage, a mother’s normal possessiveness becomes sharpened. The daughter-in-law therefore begins to interpret this behaviour of the mother-in-law as a sign of her dislike for the daughter-in-law while this cannot be true.

A family and the bride-to-be need to be pre-counselled that such a situation is likely but then it lasts only for a while if the mother’s is the only son or the first son to get married.

However, the crucial role that need be played is by the son. He should continue to be close to the mother and show affection like he always did without making the posture to be seen as a pretence.

The mother will find in course of time, if the son and his wife address the situation responsibly that a mother’s true love for the son is joining in love for the son with his wife.

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11

WOMEN’S RIGHTS OVER MEN’S IN A FAMILY

Women have been created physiologically different with compatible nature of emotions to fulfil more important roles as a wife and a mother in the human society and men have been created in the nature of wanting to support women in their roles so that a family is a viable and fruitful unit in the structure and fabrics of the human society. This is a fact and facts are stubborn.

It will be appreciated therefore that men with their masculine nature by design derive a natural sense of fulfilment as the guardians of trust by protecting, guarding and caring for their spouses with tender love; and women on their part derive the sense of the fulfilment of womanhood by the feeling of being loved through seeing that she is being maintained, protected, guarded and cared for as trust.”

Re-assurance as a Woman For an example, the wife is calmed down emotionally immediately after complaining to the husband, as soon as he returns from his place of work, about an incident that offended her that day at her place of work or with her neighbour-housewife. She simply cannot wait. It will never dawn upon the husband to assume a similar role and complain his outside problems to her as an emotional relief.

It is the wise husband who would quietly listen to the wife’s complaints against his family-members, as another example, and end the talk there without revealing on whose side he is, rather than entering into an argument immediately to worsen the situation when all the wife had wanted was a re-assurance as a woman of his protection and guardianship, often without expecting him to say even a word in reply.

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More often, such occasions are very few and far in between and become forgotten by the wife.

Ranking of Priorities Woman is adored as a symbol of chastity, love and trust. Wife is independent of her husband in the matter of management of her material wealth, however large, but she herself is strictly dependent upon his control and consent in the matter of her welfare, care and protection as a manifestation of his sense of love and concern for her well-being. Such is the wonderful ranking of priorities and values. To him she, as a trust, is more precious than all her material wealth, even if it is much larger than his.

Queen is Woman First Queen Victoria is reported to have continued to suffer the loss of her husband, Albert. Unlike other widows, she was also an Emperess. While all around her and the entire nation and empire, were obedient to Her Majesty, she missed the natural role of being a wife in obedience to her husband! It is said that she kept herself away from London for long periods; it is believed that she derived more pleasure as a woman playing the head to the family in one of the royal castles than playing the head to the empire in the palace.

Likewise, full sympathy should go to the wife in the following piece of humour, which depicts a matrimonial life not uncommon in some families. The father of five children had won a toy at a raffle. He called his kids together to ask which one should have the present. “Who is the most obedient?” he asked. “Who never talks back to Mother? Who does everything she says?” Five small voices answered in unison, “Okay, dad, you get the toy.”

Meaning to a Womanhood The wife in the piece of humour is not let be a woman by her husband. He would never get to know that he is depriving her of the rightful satisfaction of a rapture of womanhood. She would like to hear from him: “ Never do it that way - never, honey!” She 32

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would know gratefully that he cares and that he does not want her to get hurt. She would not want to miss him around while he affords her a meaning to a womanhood.

Woman’s Strength Woman’s apparent physical weakness and her delicate emotions, as misinterpreted by man, are in fact her strength to fulfil her natural roles instinctively, as wife and mother, both at the same time. That is, so long as man fulfils his obligations towards her - by letting her “being woman”.

But then, men generally have a long history of the tendency of being unjust and selfish in their relation to women. It would hardly be surprising if the campaign for the women liberalization was prompted by men themselves with the promise of a better life to women when knowing that the contrary can be true once men are able to emancipate themselves from the burden of this arduous responsibility of maintaining, protecting and caring for them.

The attempt is to reduce women as a symbol and purpose for sex only and relegate the institution of marriage and all that ensues from it as peripheral in life! No wonder, some countries are already experiencing the alarming trend of a negative population growth.

It has yet to dawn upon them that men and women are poles apart in creation for a single mutual purpose by design - the thriving of the human race and in that context, the obligations of men in favour of women are greater than those vice versa.

O’ Woman! How Terrible Is Thy Plight; When Man From Thee as Trust Takes Flight.

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12

WHEN CHILDREN’S “AUNTY” BECOMES “MOM”

A person who marries again after the death or divorce of his wife by the first marriage has one valid concern, and that is, how will he, as the head of his family with small children, manage to create and maintain a harmonious relation in an environment of mutual affection and trust between the children and their new mother normally known as stepmother.

What must be appreciated is that there is a need for the understanding of the delicate human factors involved, which are natural, and therefore, there arises the need for an application of vision, psychology, tact and patience on the part of both the parents, jointly and singly, to address the concern.

Firstly, it must be admitted that while the wife may prove herself a perfect substitute to the husband, or perhaps even a better one where the vacancy was caused by a divorce, she will, as for the children, find it some what difficult, however zealous she may be, to fill naturally and fully the vacuum created by the departure of the biological mother. The emotional attachment between the children and their mother begins months before each is born.

Adjustment in Relation In such challenging circumstances, the husband would be acting in the best interest of his children in particular and his family in general if he assists his wife in assuming the role of the new mother from the very first day of the matrimony, by the husband discreetly adjusting his relation with the children in certain aspects of the home life.

An adjustment becomes necessary for a valid reason: With the departure of the biological mother the children, especially the 34

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younger ones, tend to get closer to the father, and consequently, the father too is drawn closer to them. The children begin to relish and cling to the exclusive love the father manifests for them. This, of course, is healthy while the children are without a mother.

However, the mistake which is normally committed by the father unknowingly though with the adverse consequence in the form of ripple effects is when he, after the arrival of the new mother, continues to show the personal motherly concern with regard to almost every aspect of the home life of the children, as if nothing has changed after the marriage and the children are still without a mother. The signal the children get is that the present mother is different from what their mother was and that the father trusts the present mother less with regard to the care for the children.

Tact More Refined The husband therefore rightly needs to make less apparent his sense of concern and protectionism for the children and begin to act as was natural with him when the biological mother was around. The tact has to be even more refined where there is only one child and she is a girl. Her mental barrier against the perceived intrusion between herself and the father and her resistance to the adaptation is naturally great.

It is also ill advised to hold private sessions with the children to the exclusion of the stepmother or repeatedly in her absence to imply to the children that she is not “one of us�. However, there can arise occasions, though rare, when such a private lecturing to the children may seem appropriate.

On the contrary, the intended new relation of trust between the children and the new mother should be so cultivated by design by the husband that the children should learn to lean upon the stepmother for protection, defence or intercession when the father happens to be angry at them. The mother should be seen by the children pleading with their father regarding the grant of their requests for anything special like new dresses or sports gear, etc. and perhaps the mother, with a prior agreement with the father, Managing Family Issues

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should be seen meeting or offering to meet the cost because he pretended earlier that the intended purchases were costly.

Not Over-stretched However, this arrangement need not be over-stretched to amount to pampering and weaken the discipline of the children.

Similarly, while it is normal for the parents, as a newly wed-couple, to be accepting invitations to meet the new relatives after the marriage, the children should be included in such engagements so that they do not get away with the feeling that a stranger has appeared in the family to woo their father away from them. They, if they are small, would not understand the appearance of sudden new relatives who are perceived to want to remain strangers to the children. The children will see the new relatives as aiding and abetting the step mother in distancing the father from them.

It is therefore recommended that the children, being yet not aware of the intended marriage, are made to visit the new mother before the marriage and get to know her in advance as an Aunt under the circumstances which are amenable to a start of a friendship in the first instance. There can be an exchange of sentimental gifts, the children being encouraged to apply their creative mind for the purpose like personally stitching a handkerchief or drawing and painting on a large piece of paper to earn her compliments.

Small Drawback There is however a small drawback. The children having started knowing her as Aunty before the marriage may want to continue to call her so after the marriage and this should change to what their mother was called by them.

The mother should be let to lead in organising the observance of death anniversary of the deceased mother to impress the children that she cares and associates with them in their feelings, if there is such a tradition in the family.

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There will always be the urgency of achieving the mutual affection and trust before the stepmother begins to bear children of her own. It is of course, a matter of some concern but definitely not a disaster if the relation does not warm up from the beginning or quickly. An agreeable adaptation however does set in later as the children grow up and accept the situation as normal after knowing of similar examples in other families too.

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13

SUDDEN DEATH IN FAMILY

We are used to managing fairly well the grief over a death in the family but not the grief compounded by shock and “a sense of guilt” in the event of a sudden death.

“My father died suddenly. He was apparently not even ill.

He was not very old. Frankly, there was nothing wrong with him” A son remarked. Now what adds more to the grief and the length of mourning is this false feeling that there has to be something wrong in the reality of this mortal life when it comes to losing a member of one’s own family in the manner the son lost his father through death. His criterion for justification for a death was biased.

When there is a sudden death, there is first a shock and a haunting sense of disbelief. There is however, eventually a drift to an acknowledgment of helplessness and surrender to the will of Allah (swt).

All these phases in succession are but human and often seen as a natural acceptance of the event to control the infliction on emotions.

However, the phases of grief and mourning vary in duration from family to family. In some cases there is a prolong grief with some elements of “questioning” lingering on. In other cases there is a phase of grief up to a certain point with a philosophical acceptance that it is all a part of the reality of life.

It is said that there is an example of an African country where certain tribes have a tradition of small groups of women who upon hearing of a death in a family visit and join the bereaved family in wailing and weeping which appears more genuine than theatrical.

I can see in this, some psychological relief to the bereaved family.

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They too can cry and wail loud to the full of their hearts without any embarrassment or inhibition because the wailing of the visitors is conveniently even louder.

First Tears in Privacy We do not have this tradition of the instant appearance of seasoned and timely visitors. It is therefore this sense of inhibition which dictates that it should be only the closest relatives only who should rush to the grief-stricken family during the first hour or two to let the members wash out their shock with a flood of tears in the convenience of privacy so that they later have time to regain composure before others then begin to join in the visitation for consoling.

In the event of a sudden death, what is then left, apart from the normal mourning, is the sense of guilt. It is normal that the deceased like any other member in the family may have wanted something important done by others in the family where either speed was not practical or indeed an undue delay had intervened.

The guilt is valid only if the sudden death was pre-known.

However, there is no valid defense for the guilt where, for example, a son or a daughter thought that the parents would always be around to make up to them, before any of them died, for any cool or indifferent behaviour meted out towards them or if important promises made to the deceased remained unfulfilled for no valid reasons. These are only a couple examples.

Every Death is Timely What however would seem strange is that there is a mention of an “untimely death” in the obituary note or in the exchange of the messages of condolences even where the deceased was an old person. Whatever the cause of death, no soul leaves its abode of flesh except with the permission of Allah (swt) (Qur’an 3:145). A death is always timely when ‘permitted’ by the One Who controls exit of souls for return.

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There is always a lesson, never to be heeded though, from a sudden death. It is often found that the deceased had left a number of the important personal affairs unattended through negligence, or some of his and family’s important papers and documents are not traceable. The mourning is now two-fold.

As for a long life, if there were to be no tomorrows, no one would want to live today and keep aging to no end. “And whomsoever We cause to live long, We reduce (him) to an abject state in constitution; do they not then understand?” (Qur’an 36:38) Each tomorrow has newer and newer prospects. Death is one of them. Sometimes it is sooner and sudden either in the state of prior preparedness or sadly not.

What is a matter of great concern however in the event of a sudden death in a family is the need to protect the small children, especially if he or she is the only child in the family, from a trauma.

It is being unkind to the child to leave him on his own in the state of shock and confusion while the adult members choose to occupy themselves in their own emotional fulfilment oblivious to the fragile emotions of the child and his need for emotional support.

“Food choking” is one of the common causes for a sudden death which is easily mistaken for heart failure as the cause. The person who chokes is unable to breathe or speak while eyes are protruding.

Whatever the cause; Death sudden or otherwise is an exit all the same. Every exit is an entrance - somewhere else! Can be much better for many, if not for all.

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14

DIVORCE A COMPELLING SOLUTION; NOT A GAMBLE OPTION

“Divorce” is a word with a somber ring not without reasons. It tears apart the husband and the wife; and the children either from the father or the mother. It sticks a stigma for the rest of the life in a respectable community, more telling for the wife if the husband divorced her.

And yet, divorce is a welcome “relief” or a positive “solution” where a marital life becomes an intolerable misery. It is a solution where the problem is stubborn and other alternatives are hard to find. It allows turning a new page in a book of life. This is one book that never gathers dust.

However, on the other hand, any person who seeks or forces a divorce, and all those who support or counsel in its favour where it should not be, surely bear on their shoulders the heavy burden of accountability to Allah swt for the emotional, social and economic consequences suffered by the victim. They will wish in remorse that the clock could be turned back to amend the wrong done.

Islam is more than a religion, It is “deen” which prescribes a way of life for its followers; and as such, Islam teaches what is practical and pragmatic in a human life. Divorce in Islam has to be seen and accessed as one such practical aspect of “Islah” (concord) and “sukoon” (relief) in life where any other alternative fails to achieve these with fairness to both.

No party, whether the spouse or the parents or the counselling elders should ever resort to or dabble or meddle in decisions or advices on divorce if they are not sure of their ability to discern Managing Family Issues

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facts, or of their sense of justice and absolute fear of Allah swt. The Prophet of Islam has said: “Among the lawful things, divorce is most disliked by Allah”.

Islam acknowledges the traits of mankind as weak (“dha’ifa” Q.4:28); very impatient, hasty in temperament and prone to quick actions (“ajula” Q.17:11; “halu’a” Q.70:19)), and also argumentative (“jadala” Q.18:54); and further, as proud and boastful (“fakhura” Q.4:36); and likes to dispute (“khaseem” Q.36.77). The good measure of any person lies in his/her control over these traits in all the major decisions in life; and divorce is one. Such a control is a virtue.

With all these inherent weaknesses in mankind, can man be trusted with the serious decisions on divorce if there is no sense of justice reinforced by piety?

There is, therefore, a price to pay for every mistake committed in this life through the human traits - such is a divine design; and the price entailed is not only in this mortal life but also in the one that follows after death.

Fleeting Moment Fortunately, however, this life is a fleeting moment (Q.17:52; 20:104; 23:113) but unfortunately it is attendant with nuances, snarls and complexities. And the sacred institution of marriage for the purpose of procreation (marry and multiply) is an important part of that fleeting moment. If a marriage fails irretrievably, seeking forgiveness from Allah swt and each party contracting another for the purpose of Islaah (concord) in a community is one welcome aspect of commonsense in life.

Admittedly, therefore, human beings are prone to disputes and are wrongly proud (khaseem and fakhoor). As a marriage is a product of necessity grounded on refined feelings so is a divorce when it seems a necessity – is also grounded on feelings, much more refined for fairness.

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Ego slips in where feelings are misplaced or anything but refined.

Ego is always satanic. It is misunderstood as “self respect” or “family pride”. And this is worsened where the community elders handling a divorce case lack not only the sense of justice and fear of Allah swt. but also the simple common level of maturity, that is, knowing the balancing of what is highly ideal ( but not easy to come by) with what is practical on the ground - as the hard facts of life.

The scenario for an ego is even worse where there is stigma involved and each party wants to justify its stand and protect its image in a community to which they belong because each spouse has to look for another mate later with credentials salvaged.

Taboo Let us remember, once the word “divorce” is brought up loosely or frivolously onto the lips only as a warning or intimidation where it was far from intention, it crystallizes eventually into one. It is for this reason that in a number of families with piety, it is a taboo to utter the word loosely in relation to any married couple in the family.

Let us remember also that a divorce does not appear to be justified where a family consults Istakhara (a spiritual consultation) over it. It may be defended for a decision over a marriage whose implications are not the same as the ones for a divorce. If the spouses can after all continue with the married life if an Istakhara does not favour a divorce it will imply that a divorce is after all, not a compelling need.

Sinful It is also a common fact that in some cases, a couple’s marriage on its own ground is stable but it is other factors, not connected directly with the married life, which jeopardise it, and a divorce is wrongly seen as a means to ease those factors. Such a divorce is sinful. The factors can be economic, housing, sickness or indeed not incompatibility between the spouses but an uneven relation with Managing Family Issues

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in-laws or members of the extended family. A solution is required to ease the factors and not to hold the marriage as a ransom.

The mothers-in-law of the present generation were young daughters-in-law some thirty or forty years ago when access to education was denied to them and there was no access to mass information and to the print and electronic media.

The daughters-in-law of the present generation are different in their views, visions and sense of reasoning. They can place issues in their proper perspectives. They do not see their backyard as the world; instead they see the whole world as one global village.

They cannot be expected to concur with the decisions their mothersin-law may make for them, as a continuation of the legacy in the family. The legacy of docility and unquestionable submissiveness has since eroded to pave way for a participatory decision-making and consensus in the context of “islaah� (concord and harmony).

So where the relation between a mother-in-law and her daughterin-law is an issue threatening a marriage, then it has to be seen in a wider picture devoid of the antiquated traditions and old cultural values in the family. In this respect, the sanctity of a marriage is paramount.

Those handling a reconciliation-counselling must never lose sight of the fact that it is the husband who could rush to a decision for a divorce with less compelling reasons than the wife because to him a divorce is not a stigma and another marriage is not a difficult option for him as much as it is for the wife. So his strong insistence on a divorce does not distinguish him as the most and rightly aggrieved party.

A case of divorce therefore, needs to be handled very delicately when it reaches the stage of counselling outside the domain of the family elders. It is perfectly proper for a party to be informed discreetly if the reasons given are not strong or compelling enough.

However, to make a party, feel that it is perceived as petty-minded 44

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because of the reasons it gives or to press the party to admit that the reasons are “childish” while faced by a rank and file of “male strangers” (as seen so if the party is the wife) in a formal Reconciliation Committee is the surest way of not saving but souring the marriage further.

The parties must never let to perceive themselves as having been put in the dock like in a Court of Law and his or her credibility bruised and the prestige tarnished. Or else, it is likely to prod a party to trump up additional reason(s), which would be false, to rescue its credibility, prestige and pride; and this will only provoke the other party into an emotional rebuttal often with its own set of additional charges which can also be false. So the case would seem to have worsened after it had reached the official counselling for reconciliation as if the forum is to facilitate inter-vilification and acrimony, which is not.

Confidential The surest way of hastening a marriage into pieces is for the Reconciliation Committee is to bring the husband and the wife together, as if placed in the judicial dock, to ask them to defend themselves individually in the presence of each other and thereby provoke a spectacle of emotional trading of accusations, embarrassing to the respective parties. Besides, there can be no guarantee ever possible that the proceedings so misconducted and the “sensitive” accusations so precipitated and exposed, where the committee members were a benchful, will remain confidential.

What is more, the committee must never let or, worse still, prod the husband to raise a claim or accusation of indecency against the wife if this is the reason for deciding on a divorce - even if he claims that he is a witness or has witnesses of any incidents or indeed, evidence of confession from the wife. The husband should be pre-warned that no such reason, if at all is the case, will be welcomed and heard.

Any attempt in this direction need be stopped immediately.

He should further be informed that the committee has no Managing Family Issues

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authority to deny a divorce, anyway, if the attempt at saving the marriage fails.

The wife will have the right to protest to the higher authorities in the community or may seek a legal advice if a committee willfully permits any such character-assassination by the husband – to satisfy the eager ears with the ravishing details of the alleged incidents.

The Qur’an is very strict in having such allegations proved.

The husband is not at any disadvantage because he can still pursue and obtain a divorce without having to give any reasons for which he cannot or does not want to produce evidence or if these can cast aspersions on the character or chastity of his wife. Islam also forbids this. However, the situation is not the same where the wife has a claim of unfaithfulness against the husband as she has to argue out her case for a divorce.

Same Coins There is no such thing as a “one way” in an emotional attachment in this world between family members. Payments are tendered in the same coins. Each member has to earn love or respect by giving it also in almost equal measures, more so between the spouses. When dealing with a case of a divorce, reconciliation is one step nearer if this factor is identified, addressed and a remedy counselled.

It is wrong to believe that the elders in a family have an absolute right to obedience from their daughter-in-law, and the husband from the wife in the context of Islamic values without the return of love, concern and respect for her also by manifestation and demonstration. The obligation is reciprocal.

We must never lose sight also of the following facts which are not difficult to acknowledge and understand: Of the two parties, it is the husband and his parents who have to make allowances and show flexibilities in favour of the wife when weighing and balancing the respective mistakes and weaknesses 46

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of each other because the wife is a woman and is not equally comparable to man in the nature in which she has been created for ‘an extent’ of emotional adjustments. There is for her a limit to it. Latitude is more justified if she is also a mother small children.

Islam underscores the difference gender-wise in the Qur’an in verse 4:34.

Masculine Egos Secondly, the wife as a disputant or respondent in the matter of a divorce is most likely to lose control over her exercise of decision on the fate of the issue of divorce and, in the process, her decision in favour of a reconciliation may be over-ridden by her parents when they step in as a third party more motivated by masculine egos than sane reasoning. There are examples where divorce was pushed through by parents without the absolute and free consent of their daughter. The decision of divorce is virtually sold to her by scaring her wrongly of what would befall her if she went against their decision. It can come to even the threat of losing their “ridha” if she did not go along with their decision.

The committee handling an application for divorce is required to obtain and understand the reasons for the application and establish the extent of differences between the parties by having sessions with them separately. That is one stage in the process.

What follows is the stage of counselling which will indicate the parameter of prospects for a reconciliation to avoid divorce.

However, counselling is a talent definitely not adequately present in every person. Personal success in someone’s either economic occupation, professional career, academic achievements, in Islamic studies or in a position of services to the community or leadership in a jamaat does not necessarily establish that person’s credentials to act as a knowledgeable counsellor.

As it is not sugar, but stirring, that sweetens the tea, it is not the formal sessions of a committee but a private knowledgeable counselling outside the committee, on the direction of the Managing Family Issues

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committee, which will sweeten and not sour the attempt at bringing about a reconciliation This is because all the members have differing “individual minds” in the approach to counselling and in the act of counselling itself when the reasons may have also different facets to be addressed.

Winning Trust The person counselling has to have the art of first knowing how to win the trust of the party to be counselled and create access to the party’s thoughts and perceptions from his/her mindset in the matter of their differences. The counsellor should be seen by the party as a repository of trust and a beacon of hope for whatever that is good that can come about to the satisfaction of the party.

The counsellor must be able to set himself in the place of the party and try to see the situation through each party’s point of view, however misplaced it may be or seem.

The counselling is aimed at having the parties agree to have differences or the effects thereof minimised if not removed and whatever is left to be managed by the couple with patience or adaption as a normal course of a matrimonial life.

The person counselling has to draw upon his “taqwa” (piety), the bare reality of life and accordingly, the laws of probabilities, the examples of experience in such situations and to draw a wider picture to cover pertinent perspectives and visions of possible hopes and failures as a consequence of various decisions possible to be made – all in a relevant combination.

Basic Psychology In addition, and the balancing of alternatives between the status quo and if the status quo is changed – with some application of basic psychology pursuant to a human nature and the dispassionate authority of some doses of alerts/exhortations when necessary while all the time be seen to be sympathetic to the party and yet not necessarily siding with or supporting his or her nuances, thoughts or perceptions even if any of these may be valid or right 48

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lest the other party misinterprets this as partiality.

Counselling for reconciliation for its sake only - regardless of the misery and suffering feared to be inflicted upon one or both the parties in the status quo - is wrong. On the contrary a reconciliation hopelessly grounded and influenced can precipitate later a situation even worse to render the welfare of the couple in terms of mental and physical health and family relations beyond retrieve.

Such a counselling is navigated by one person singly or two jointly with the credentials catalogued, sitting with the parties individually or both jointly or alternately singly and jointly takes place in the atmosphere of a homely lounge friendly state of confidentiality and privacy for effect and impact.

It will be seen therefore that, as it is not the direction in which the wind blows but the skill of setting the sail against the wind that determines the direction of a sail-boat, it is also not the official sessions of a committee but a private knowledgeable counselling outside the committee, on the direction of the committee, which will set the issue in a right direction to bring about a reconciliation This is because all the members, numbering quite a few, will be having differing “individual minds� in their respective approach to counselling and in the act of counselling itself inter-countering the effects each produces in the minds and hearts of each of the parties in what will appear as an exercise in futility.. At the end the parties will draw a sigh of relief when the session ends with no reconciliation in sight.

Wider Picture Under such trying circumstances then, it is for the counsellors to exercise due tact laced with wisdom and set the issue(s) in a wider picture in the endeavours to save the marriage. Letting the opportunity for a reconciliation slip out of their hands by being perceived as taking sides oblivious to the above-mentioned guidelines is for the counsellors/parents getting into wronging the parties. This is because every customary responsibility assumed on such sensitive matters entails social and spiritual accountability; Managing Family Issues

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mis-use of the responsibility even through ignorance or good intention does not absolve the parents and the counsellors from mis-handling the responsibility.

I have come across admirable examples of a married couple having saved their own marriage through their sharp sense of sacrifices and adjustments, where possible, only for the sake of small children.

And the results were so rewarding that the children when grown up and on their own loved and honoured their parents even more for the self-restraint and sacrifice borne by them.

To a good sailor and his crew, no wind is bad, whatever its direction, so long as it keeps the boat of matrimony moving ahead towards the harbour of fruitfulness.

Gross Indiscretion It must also be understood that man is polygamous by a natural tendency. Some mistakes or gross indiscretion in this regime can be few and isolated from the normal conduct. If the issue, delicate and sensitive as it is, is mis-handled by the wife and her parents by excessive emotional reactions, and the husband is embarrassed in the community, the first stitch unraveled always leads to many more to follow in the fabric of a marriage. This does not mean that the tendency is condoned; but needs to be contained very discreetly. Naming and shaming the husband outside the family is the surest way to a divorce when it was far from intention.

Let us remember, an angry wife with all sorts of outbursts only to be sorry later, looks ugly to the husband, however pretty she may be. This is the surest way to prompting the husband to continue with the “extra-marital association”, lawful or otherwise, which was supposed to be a temporary indiscreet phase in life.

There is a saying: That which can be shaped with a goldsmith’s hammer cannot be done by an impressive and formidable iron smith’s hammer – though it is the lifting and swinging of the ironsmith’s hammer that evokes the ovation of “bravo” - only to flatten the thing out of shape.

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The over-ambitious choice of the iron-smith’s hammer may have been with a good intention, but then many a road to hell in this life is paved with good intentions. To flatten a shapely thing beyond recognition is sure a hell for those who valued it in more than in material terms.

And then, if the only tool in hand is the iron-smith’s hammer, every problem is seen wrongly as a nail.

Haunting Issues On the other hand, with the rise in both, the human intellect level through generations and concern for the durability of a married life in the community, shall we continue to allow a husband to marry again and keep enjoying his matrimonial life while viciously denying divorce to the first wife for years and subjecting her to a lonely life after having forced a separation on her?

Second issue. If the husband marries another woman without consent from the wife or if consent was denied because he had no valid reasons for another marriage, and the wife wants “relief” through divorce, she too needs equal right to exercise authority to divorce.

Fortunately, these issues have since begun to be attended to by the community by intending to introduce an Islamic marriage contract to protect the interest of the wife necessary under certain circumstances.

Such a contract can be mandatory so that there will be no bride and her family who through self intimidation can portray themselves as “well trusting the bridegroom” and avoid a contract to stigmatise those who do want a contract.

It is an existence of such a contract which will serve as a deterrent to a marriage breakdown. The husband will not be able to resort to an intimidation of a separation or create one while with-holding divorce. A long dark tunnel with no hope for a light at the end for the estranged wife will be a story (dastan) of the past only for us Managing Family Issues

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to wonder why it has taken us so long to wake up and consign the story to the dustbin of history.

Finally, a lesson can be derived from the following two scenarios. In the first one, a husband keeps pushing away the rightly premised thought of divorce for fear that his wife may not have a chance of another marriage which he would hope and pray for and that her life could be a misery.

In the other, an ex-husband opens the gate of an innuendo and tirade against his ex-wife, already divorced by him, at the news of a re-marriage planned by her in order to come out of a life of misery.

It should not be difficult for smart members of the Matrimonial Reconciliation Committee of a Jamaat to recognize such a husband during a pursuit of protracted process of his divorce.

It has become therefore necessary for the two parties to be appropriately counselled on the need for both the parties with their families to exercise restraint from trading accusations – during and after the process of divorce – and preferably an assurance obtained that no party would let itself caught in a character assassination of the other in the community when the incident of a divorce will have, unfortunately already become an unpleasant necessity to raise many eye-brows in a community or society.

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15

AN ENEMY THAT CAN WRECK EVERY FAMILY WHEN NOT RESTRAINED

A formidable enemy is the one who can cause separation between a husband and his wife, thus wrecking also the security and welfare of the children with a spill-over of life-time consequences to also other members in the family.

There is nothing more precious in this world than a happy family life. It is a basic human necessity, and therefore, it requires its fulfilment to make life meaningful while it lasts.

A human life is characterized and punctuated by a number of situations of concern, which require a thoughtful address and a balanced management. What is necessary is a response and not a reaction to the situations as they arise.

However, this enemy can worsen such situations like the one that can make a father disown his son and a mother break the marriage of her daughter. It can make two brothers turn an enemy to each other. A catalogue of situations already bad, made even still worse with far reaching consequences, can be long. The enemy behind all this remains incognito to strike again and again.

Of course, this enemy can be responsible for consequences in also other sectors of life like in business, employment, sports and civil society. But nothing can be as disastrous as a wrecking of a family life.

What is ironic is the fact that the enemy is sheltered by us – ourselves - individually – with all its potency to harm and is seen to be harming when it is let to do its job, where there is often no job for it.

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This enemy is ANGER (Gaiz in Arabic, Krodh in Gujarati and Ghazabu or Hasira in Kiswahili) when it is let to break out loose – and often out of control. While it is human to be prone and moved to anger, it is animalistic to let it take over the human reasoning and sanity and worsen a situation. It is demonic in spiritual terms.

Weaker Personality Anger makes the tongue act faster than the brain. Anger disproportionate to a given situation as one’s temperamental nature is a sign of a weaker personality bordering on a shade of insanity.

The risks are greater where a person is young, not yet fully seasoned in the practical matters of life or when old nagged by a sense of insecurity in life; and even more so where a person feels (wrongly) secured by a sense of one’s seniority in a family, or personal wealth to back on, or a higher station of life or a high status in a society.

Such a deceptive feeling is yet a combination of another weakness in a person.

There are examples where anger is unleashed disproportionate to a situation, and to make it even worse, when the situation is wrongly misunderstood. It sets a spill-over chain of other consequences to roll on beyond the point of return.

If a person believes that being human, he has the right to explode into anger - but not at the neighbour blocking cars in the parking lot, not at his business partner who mis-manages business, not at the grocer who delivers inferior quality of grains and not at the hefty car-driver when he reports late for work, but can readily do so only at his family members who are his soft target - because they are meek and docile and, above all, respectful to him and, because it is here that he can prove his bravado, then he is even worse enemy to himself. Therefore, in the Shia Fiqh a divorce pronounced by a husband in anger is invalid.

The Results The results? A disintegration of what was a happy extended family 54

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or a divorce between the spouses and separation of children from one parent or even members of the family resorting to a court of law against one another.

Every actor on the scene will be claiming that there were no alternatives to the consequences when honestly there were no causes apparent for all the consequences ensued only if the anger had been restrained in the first instance.

The consequences of the anger are later seen to be even worse than the situation that was the cause for the anger in the first instance. The situation was perhaps mere a hiccup of a moment or a storm in a teacup.

A person cannot easily “extinguish” anger once humanly kindled but can wisely “restrain” it with human dignity. It is with such a restraint that one can make it easy to explain the concern over a situation and register admonishment with effect.

Doers of Good The quality of restraining anger in a person can be appreciated when Allah swt has likened it to benevolence and declared such a person as a doer of good in the following verse of the Qur’an: “Those who spend (benevolently) in ease as well as in straitness, and those who restrain (their) anger and pardon men; and Allah loves the doers of good (to others)” Q.3:134.

In the case of the following verse, it is related to forgiveness of the wives and children in a family, though the cause for anger was strong and valid.

“And if you pardon, and forbear, and forgive, then surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful” (Q.64:14)

The greatest remedy for anger is delay in reaction while thinking for a while over a remedial response. The person feeling that he has a right to be angry should instead show that he is too much hurt and will speak over the cause later.

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It is a sign of a refined personality of a person, who can admonish and address the situation without raising voice in anger.

The Bible also enjoins a restraint to anger. The examples are as follow: “Let anger alone and leave rage. Do not show yourself heated up only to do evil” (Psalm 37:8) “An enraged man stirs up contention but one that is slow to anger quiets down quarrelling” (Pr 15:18) “He that is slow to anger is abundant in discernment but one that is impatient is exhalting foolishness” (Pr 14:29) “He that is slow to anger is better than a mighty man” (Pr 16:32) “The insight of a man certainly slows down his anger” (Pr

19:11) “Be wrathful and yet do not sin; let the sun not set with you in a provoked state” (Eph 4:26)

Bhagwad Gita too makes references to being “free of anger” as a lofty human attribute like in Ch.2:56 “One who is not disturbed in mind even amidst the threefold miseries or elated when there is happiness, and who is free from attachment, fear and anger, is called a sage of steady mind”

and notably the following also in Ch.16:21: “There are three gates leading to hell – lust, anger and greed.

Every sane man should give these up, for they lead to the degradation of the soul”

And finally, the need to fasten the belt seat because “People who fly into a rage always make a bad landing” - Will Rogers.

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16

PAT ON BOTH CHEEKS FOR DIFFERENT REASONS

We are amused by the proverbial joke in which a boy informs the visitor at the door that his father was saying that he was not at home.

Perhaps the father did not want to be disturbed at the time as he was piously twirling prayer-beads to complete his chanting of the Allah’s beautiful names. He was God-conscious on this score!

There is no place, no school and no Madrassa where a child ‘begins’ to learn and cultivate ethics (Akhlaq) other than his/her home.

And the most essential item of ethics is “not telling lies” Parents are the role models to the children for Akhlaq. And children happen to be keen observant and eager to imitate.

A child is bought a pair of slippers (champal) of his own size so that he leaves alone the adult size pair, which his father uses. But after a couple of days of use, the novelty of the new pair wears off and the child gets again into playing a walk to and fro in the slippers of the father despite all the discomfort of the over-size pair and loss of balance every now and then.

The child wants to copy what his father does and his father’s pair comes by useful. It is worrying if what he copies is his father’s bad behaviour. The worse is for the child catching father telling lies as a habit. A truth said in the family can also be doubted with serious results.

Earlier Lies There can be no family that runs the risk of destroying its harmony within itself like the one in which some members are incorrigibly Managing Family Issues

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prone to telling lies as a habit, even on petty matters that are of no consequence in terms of gain or necessity. And it is worse when they do not remember their earlier lies. No one in the family is sure on what information to place what value and take care But then, the habit was caught, while the adults were at small age in the family believing that the habit was a part of normal life on seeing the parents deep in it.

The Qur’an condemns telling lies to the extent that the act has been declared as a serious sin.

Lies are vehicles for intrigues and mischief. Lies can wreck harmony and trust in a family. Such families produce children who, as adult, make sons, daughters, husbands, wives, fathers and mothers unworthy of the trust they are required to uphold while in their respective positions of responsibility in a family.

However, a sad part of the message is for those families whose members do not have the habit of telling lies and yet they can unknowingly raise children with this habit. And they are unaware of this unkindness to the children.

A child, with the human instinct of self-survival will find himself compelled to tell lies and avoid confession to any act of misbehaviour if he knows that it will be normal for him to face fury or fury with punishment instead of being let off relatively lightly as a reward for being truthful. To him, more often than not, his hopeful security and self-protection lies in telling lies.

And yet, do not kiss him on a cheek when he is being truthful, and do not slap him on the cheek either for his prompt confession.

Perhaps a pat of warning on one cheek and a pat of forgiveness on the other can be a magic wand.

Avoiding telling lies to family members are a demonstration of love for them and holding onto the trust each member has in one another. It is this that will ensure sustainable harmony in a family and the passing on of the spirit of loyalty for the family from one generation to another.

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17

CASES OF DEPRESSION MISHANDLED IN FAMILY

There is no family, which has had no experience of a member feeling very sad and dejected for a certain period. He would only claim that he is “unwell” which can be true and yet he would not be able to be specific as to what exactly ails him.

The member can also be a female - say, mother, wife, sister or daughter. In fact, women in our community are twice prone to the condition.

So attendance at a function or ceremony outside home, which was anxiously awaited, is avoided and later the absence bites. The dress that was being stitched enthusiastically for a special occasion is left unfinished. Leaving home for the workplace each morning is no longer an appealing idea; and yet a weekend is a dread. These are only examples of how the normal life becomes disrupted, and sleep and appetite lose their rhythm.

The person would not want to discuss or confide the condition because he or she cannot comprehend why his or her feeling of being unwell is inexplicable, obstinate and real bad.

And yet, there will be many families, which will not be able to claim that they have knowledgeably handled such cases appropriately with deserving satisfaction and discretion.

A Phase The condition is normally known as “depression”. It is common as a phase because a human being is importantly a bundle of feelings as it is also of flesh. A passionate and conscientious person is more prone to it.

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Fortunately, the condition is commonly temporary and can often be attributed to a certain event like death in the family, miscarriage of pregnancy, divorce, loss in business, anxiety over a state of health, failure in college examination or matrimonial attempts and the likes. This is a functional depression which goes away in short time.

There are cases, however, where there is no apparent reason and yet there is a sub-conscious push towards the condition. This condition too wears out sooner if it is recognized and properly handled discreetly in the family.

The serious mistake is however committed when the family is ignorant or naïve enough to slap the condition immediately with no other name than the dreaded “munjaro” in the Indian languages, even if the depression is functional and therefore normal as a temporary phase – as a part of living.

Such an unkind and ignorant view and judgment of the condition gives a wrong signal to the member that there is nothing that the family or anyone else can and will do, and that she or he must keep suffering - presumed by the family to be - for months, if not years.

The victim is seen wrongly as able to come out of the condition if she or he chooses to, and any sympathy or understanding is considered a negative pampering to worsen the condition, and therefore, of no value or consequence – a waste. This perception is wrong and being unkind.

What is even worse, the condition, having been given a serious name, the victim is publicised and stigmatised in the community only to prompt a chain of unwelcome visits which tend to worsen the mental aspect of the condition of the member..

“Jadoo” - Witchcraft While any thought of an immediate medical help rarely crosses the mind, what may, however, is a thought of a possible “jadoo” (witchcraft) with a string of speculation of who could be the likely cause 60

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or the culprit, and therefore, a rush to a “mwaalimu” (spiritual healer) and the case is lost. Fortunately, though, such a tradition is rare with the community in East Africa.

“Munjaro” is a serious condition, which applies to only the acute or chronic cases of depression. It is dreadful and torturous. “Munjaro” has no relevance to the normal simple functional depression, which is temporary and must have the same name as “depression” if an equivalent one is not available in other languages.

This mis-perception is common in the community because of the ignorance, and proves vicious and negative in handling a case in the family. It leaves disastrous long-term effects. The social aspect of the effect may be irreversible.

The victim is given the impression that he or she must resign to this fate supposedly as a permanent torturous mental condition.

The victim would therefore develop new torturous symptoms, which were not supposed to be there.

The victim in the family becomes the target of constant lecturing, scolding and persuasion in the false attempt to brave him or her to come out of the condition as if by a mere press of button, - and resume normalcy.

In women, the worse victims are among the widows, spinsters and the housewives who traditionally pass the daily life at home. Their little periodical enjoyable access to the outside society becomes shut. The prospects for a nice matrimonial life become dim for spinsters as the condition, which is mis-construed as “Munjaro”, carries undeservedly a social stigma in the community.

People in millions suffer the functional condition of Depression each year. Our community is no exception. The only exception is that families in question contribute to the worsening of the condition through sheer ignorance. Most of the individuals do not get the help they need - and discreetly. Immediate proper medical attention can remedy entirely most of the cases before letting them drift into an acute or chronic condition for lack of understanding, attention Managing Family Issues

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and sympathy.

It is also necessary to remember that temporary depression goes often unrecognized, especially among the adolescents, and the depressed individuals often continue to suffer silently and endlessly without even the family becoming aware of it. There are symptoms to watch for - for a timely help to them.

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18

GAINING VISION FROM FAMILY HISTORY

A client brought his prospective (intended) partner to my office for a cursory (initial) appraisal of a proposal for a construction of a modern office building which he intended to finance with an option of a joint ownership on completion. When the prospective partner introduced himself, I got curious because of his surname. I asked whether he was related to a person of his community with the same surname with whom I was very close until he emigrated. He confirmed that he was, whereupon I naturally inquired more about their relationship.

The client was surprised to find that I knew some of the history of the grandfather of the prospective partner, which I had learnt from the emigrant cousin. The prospective partner was almost a stranger to his own family history of struggle, set-backs through mistakes and bad luck, and later successes through perseverance and faith.

Sometimes later, however, the client informed me that his interest in the proposal diminished following the accidental appraisal of the person he intended to work with in the proposal. He realised that as in the case of the proposal, an appraisal of the person intended to be involved in a proposal was equally important. The ignorance of one’s own family history was seen to him as a demerit.

Lessons for Right Vision Almost every family has a known history of tact, hardship, perseverance, devotion, and of adherence to principles, values and faith in the course of the constant struggle with an alternation of set-backs and successes in life. The known history may span over three preceding generations or more. Every young member in the family has the right to be informed of such history of the family by the parents so that he later in life as a responsible adult is able to Managing Family Issues

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draw lessons from it and formulate his vision aright.

There may have occurred partnership disputes, business split, divorce cases, inheritance disputes, losses from business speculation and such other situations in the past in the family through perhaps negative emotions or miscalculated reasoning or misplaced trust with some disastrous consequences. Family history, if known, can help the succeeding generations avoid a repetition of the occurrences or exercise caution to avert such potential situations.

But before a child is old enough for information about the familyhistory, he has yet a prior right, equally important, - a right to that best and pertinent piece of education which originates only in his home and can avail to him in his young age only by the parents.

That piece is about the reality of this transient life, the life of a constant struggle, exacting mental, physical and emotional toll, until there comes the inevitable exit in the form of death. He may not know that the struggle begins right from birth. He too cried as he struggled for first few initial breath, which is normal for all babies when they begin to use their lungs as they are born.

Importance in Timing The importance lies in timing the imparting of that piece of education for good effect. The time is when the child is getting inquisitive about the reasons for the quarrels and disputes which he hears about or witnesses as each occurs among the adults.

The reasons are mostly connected with the struggle as part of this mortal life attendant with human weaknesses. He cannot be explained reasons without allowing him the perception of the constant struggle in the life of every mortal, whatever his station of life, and which is attached to every family. To preserve health is also an ongoing struggle until there is a succumb to natural death.

The child has to be impressed that there is always a twist and turn in the struggle; and ups and downs in the history of every family and that the family in which he is born is no exception. Examples of the struggle are given to the child in the form of piece-meals narration of the family-history as and when appropriate occasions arise for impact as he keeps growing up.

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Then the child, on his part as an adult later would, for the information of his children, add the narration of his own life-history of strife and successes as a continuous process of passing on the family history to the succeeding generations.

The grasping power of a grown-up child with regard to the family history and the lessons intended for him in the narration should not be under-estimated.

Tribute to the Grandfather There are some people who hear about the pieces of the history of struggle and successes of their family either late or from other elders of the local community. They wished they had heard it earlier and from the family so that they could not only have paid tribute to the grandfather while he was still alive but perhaps also asked him for details and the reminiscence of emotions involved.

Allah (swt) mentions in the holy Qur’an the importance of history.

It offers guidance and lessons so that the reality of life is known and the mistakes committed in the past are avoided. The familyhistory is no different. The following are the examples of the Qur’anic verses: “And all We relate to you (the Prophet) of the accounts of the apostles is to strengthen your heart therewith...” (11:120).

“In their histories there is certainly a lesson for men of understanding... “ (12:111) “Thus do We relate to you (O’ Our Messenger Mohammad!) of the (historic) accounts of what has passed (of old); and indeed have We given to you from Ourselves a Reminder (Qur’an)”.

(20:99).

Let us learn from the desert ant which crawls long distances under the scorching sun. It stops and turns itself to look behind now and then in order to be able to monitor the direction and forge ahead.

It never gets lost. We too need to look back into the family history, that is, if we have been made aware of it in good time, as we march on with the time and with the past family mistakes usefully in mind.

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19

SELF-LABOUR A SIGN OF FAMILY “KHANDANI” (Nobility)

It was a hot tropical noon. A driver was sweating while engaged in changing a wheel of a car on a dusty road in a rural area of Tanzania. The owner was standing under a shadow of a tree near the car with a vacuum flask in one hand and a cup in another.

The owner saw some distance away a woman busy tilling land with a hoe. Strapped onto her back with a broad sheet of Khanga (cloth sheet) was a baby. He went near to the toiling woman for a better look.

He saw spread and pressed across her back two tiny legs of the baby protruding from the khanga-sheet and the head pinned against the mother’s back. The baby could not move its head. It could look towards only one fixed side-way direction. It appeared to be hardly a comfortable posture for any baby.

However, what made the inquisitive visitor thoughtful was the fact that the eyes of the baby were fully open with face composed; and from the length and width of the portion tilled, it appeared the mother had been working under the hot sun in company with the baby for already about an hour.

But that was not all. The mother would bend down from the waist to reach the land with the hoe and then after a while, stand up straight to adjust the weight of the baby back to the original posture because as she bent the weight of the baby would slightly shift. This alternation went on regularly every couple of minutes.

After a short while it was he who got physically tired standing and 66

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watching the mother, and wondered if she too would get tired of tilling any time soon.

He wondered what was that so important to the mother that made her position her child in that state of discomfort and then admirably taught the child to accept it calmly as a normalcy in life. When the answer - that It was “Labour” - dawned upon him with a sting of a sudden sense of guilt, he hurried back to the car to lend hand to the driver whom he had left labouring only to find that the job had been completed.

Human world or indeed human life is unimaginable without application of labour in every practical aspect of life. No religion, no creed and no wisdom looked down upon “labour”.

Dignity The first thing that the human race knew as part of their life was “manual labour”.

Without it they could not have survived. Labour gives to man a dignity, whatever may be his station of life. Higher the station higher is the dignity.

The tiny and delicate creatures like ants too, during their short span of life, enjoy fruition of life only through orchestrated labour, which is by a divine design for them. Anything which is by a divine design from the Compassionate Creator is a blessing.

It is therefore the duty of the head of a family to see that members in the family hold the concept and institution of labour with great respect. They should be brought up from childhood with an attitude which is cheerfully inclined to a manual labour, voluntary or otherwise, for themselves or as a duty for others.

They should feel joy in sharing labour with those who are assigned or employed to provide labour or indeed they should want to perform labour and do so for themselves on occasions when the servants are engaged in other pressing house chores or other assignments outside homes.

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But then the elders have to lead by examples. Shouting to a daughter busy with her school home-work to come over from another room and hand over to the father his newspapers lying a couple of meters away or waiting for the cook with her hands deep kneading dough to answer a door-bell are not the examples.

There is a couple of families, and perhaps there are other more, in East Africa each of whose members takes away the plate used to the kitchen after a meal has been taken, as a symbolic gesture of a team work with the domestic servants.. The domestic servant then does the washing as her/his eased share of work and feels a sense of some degrees of equality and team work. The loyalty thus gained from the servant can be extremely valuable.

There was a housewife in Tanzania who did the dish-washing after every evening meal so that the kitchen sink was sparkling clean each night and the house maid, not one but two, had less chores to attend to in the morning. She did not know why she was doing it except that she found an appealing taste for it.

The person wanting his dawn tea dutifully served in bed should not begrudge if he slept in the kitchen. His priority is not where he sleeps but the comfort of tea in bed.

I have seen some “gentlemen guests” who assist or offer to assist the porter when arriving at a hotel or leaving it and yet there would be others who would want even their newspapers also carried up to their room with the luggage.

Quick Tiding Up A “gentleman guest” in a hotel would do some quick tiding up of his bed for an interim decent appearance pending a cleaning service for later that morning, before coming down for his breakfast or going out for his appointment for that day. He is the one who would not throw the used wet bath towels randomly down onto the bathroom floor, or empty bottles into the trash basket instead of lining them up neatly to await collection.

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The real place for observation is a hotel’s breakfast hall which is crowded during that one hour rush time. A guest would be seen going to the buffet counter picking up again a fresh crockery for a re-fill, or not picking up the items dropped off the table if he has to stretch his arm to retrieve it from under the table or using the expensive monogrammed napkin where a tissue paper would help almost as nicely or indeed while leaving, not placing the chair back in the position he found it earlier.

Of course, it is known that an extra undue comfort grabbed by one is an extra undue labour imposed on others.

This is an attitude of mind which dislikes self-labour not recognizing that such a mind-set itself is slavish in nature. That is, he is a slave of his habit.

It is those who, as a culture, enjoy self-labour for themselves where manageable, are likely to be seen rushing to volunteer an impromptu help to others while travelling. The passengers are completely strangers but on the other hand, very well seen as “family” during a flight. They will help a passenger seen struggling to process and get a boarding pass online at a busy airport or help to remove the heavy belongings of a fellow passenger from an overhead luggage bin in an aircraft or from a conveyor-belt at the arrival section of an airport, and feel real good about it.

A cartoon depicting two contrasting images, one of a husband and the other of his wife, had a message that spoke volume about a “comfort undue for one is extra labour undue for another”. A husband is beaming a broad tight-lipped teasing smile - from ear to ear, - a smile of comfort and contentment – with the oozing paan juice visibly stuck at both the corners of the mouth - a sign of a tummy full meal after a well assisted hot bath – and behind him in the cartoon is his dishevelled and exhausted wife with drooping shoulders.

With some, it will be his wife who will later bend down and pick up this book, which you are reading right now, and place it neatly where it should have been – by the reader.

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It should however be noted that this weakness of looking down on self-labour as being below one’s human dignity can be found among people and families of any religion, creed, race, or sect and in any country because it is a human weakness which need to be overcome. The weakness among the few cannot stereotype a whole community they may belong to.

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20

‌ WHEN PRIVILEGED TO GROW OLD

When the father gets old, older and still older there comes a time when he is perceived in the family as a person who is also getting to be different and more different in his outlook from what he was, as if he is a new person with however the same face. This is more evident if he is a widower past seventy and feels lonely and dependent at home.

This is the time then for the family to get to know this new person even better in order to get closer to him and to respect and serve him well. He is the father, the same father as he always was, after all, and that is all that matters to the family.

His sense of concern and anxiety for the well being of the family even with regard to small matters is accentuated. However, when it comes to his own personal conveniences his concern is now even more pronounced.

The biological aging has its emotional effects on the behaviour of a person. The older the person grows the more prominent are the effects. The symptoms are normal in the case of the majority of aged persons, and yet they are lucky because growing old is a privilege denied to many.

Brain is about two percent of the body weight but normally needs twenty percent of the body blood circulation for sharp functioning.

It is believed that with the thickening of the blood vessels in the process of advanced aging, the constrained supply of blood (oxygen) to the brain dims the mental alertness to a level, which is scaring to those who were mentally sharp during their active life.

It is mainly this, which is the reason for the slide down in the selfconfidence and the consequent sense of insecurity. The degrees in the slide vary.

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Endured With the self-confidence gone, the personal situation becomes aggravated when the old person additionally finds himself also dependent for his mobility or movement because of the failing vision and hearing and weak limbs along with perhaps a certain illness or more - for which there is no cure, and therefore, has to be endured to the end. Allah swt warns in the Qur’an by verse “36:68 “And whomever We cause to live long, We reduce (him) to an abject state in constitution, do they not then understand?

The dependence for the upkeep and pocket expenses is even worse.

Dress and personal appearance therefore are difficult to keep with at their normal state and become less important anyway; survival through a maze of dependence is important.

With all these anxieties characterised by dependence and lack of self-confidence, the aged persons strangely derive a sense of security, however false, in clinging to a daily routine of life, which he has grown used to and befriended with.

The feeling is that if they went through the life of dependence and uncertainties safe last month, and continue to scrap through safely the current month, they will feel safe and secured if they continue with the same routine undisturbed in the months which “will hopefully” follow and lived, as they see themselves living and surviving from month to month with a haunting sense of insecurity.

They are not turning to be self-centred, but their natural instinct of survival, over which they have no control, becomes sharpened.

This is human when it comes to the old age of infirmity.

The following experiences, which are not uncommon, offer an insight into the behaviour and shifting perspectives as a few examples: I took copies of Islamic magazines in Gujarati to an old person past eighty who anxiously asked me if I had received my last electricity bill in the mail, because his family had not received theirs though it should have arrived a day before and paid for the next day.

When I was about to depart after a few minutes, he pointed out to 72

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me an electric bed-side night lamp, which he would switch on at night. He said that he needed it on while he was asleep! He kept a yellow coloured bulb as a spare for the lamp in the event of the need arising for replacement at night.

I thought that he would gladly do without light at his dinner with the family occasionally but not without the night lamp with the coloured bulb...yellow, to be precise, even for a single night! He derived a sense security in the nightly routine of the use of a lamp for secured sleep and the supply of electricity was indeed important.

“Fortress” Another example. House fumigation needed to be carried out when pests began to appear crawling at night. For the fumigation to be effective, the entire premises have to be covered in one operation.

The old grandfather in the family, however, warned that he would not abandon his “fortress” (bedroom). To him fumigation was not as important as the satisfaction in his sense of security derived from the continuity of his daily life routine! Fumigation, even once, was no part of it!

No wonder that there would also be a resistance to shifting from a small room to one which is more ventilated and convenient for an old person and yet no valid reason for refusal can be given because the person himself cannot even comprehend the reason for his obstinacy. This is strangely more common with those who are otherwise intelligent by their standard!

For those in the family who fail or are slow in appreciating and sympathising with the behaviour of the aged persons in the family especially those aged persons who are single, then let the Qur’anic exhortation prevail: not a sound of Uff! comes out from the lips with disrespect to them, if the family lacks the tact of persuasion; for they too will most likely be no different when they too are privileged to grow very old.

Perhaps very few of us realise that the most productive period of this earthly life in terms of gaining the spiritual reward in the Managing Family Issues

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Hereafter is the old age during which a constant declaration of patience and gratefulness (sabran wa shukran) to Allah for the old age and all the helplessness, illnesses and bereavement of the dear ones that go with it is very much pleasing to Allah swt. But then the blessed opportunity is soured, or worse, wasted, instead by a string of complaints to the family on small issues, as if the concern and love demonstrated by the family members for him were not enough.

A quote: “Age is opportunity no less Than youth itself, though in another dress, And as the evening twilight fades away The sky is filled with stars invisible by day.�

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21

WHEN MEALS IN FAMILY BECOME A “DRAB” OF EATING

There are “things” which we may think as small because we do not know that they in fact matter in a big way. One of such things is how a family at home have their meals.

The following scenarios are not uncommon: The father and sons sit for meals together, leaving the female members to have theirs separately later.

Most likely, this arrangement is brought about to facilitate the male members to talk family shop or business over the meals.

Another example is where the entire family have meals together, but the worst part is that the male members dominate the fields of the talk which is again often on the family business apart from other male talks like sports.

Intimidation The female members are therefore “gagged” into a “disciplined” silence in front of the “bosses”. The intimidation to the females may even extend to a point that asking for a dish to be passed would be a rude disturbance to the males’ talk and, therefore, a breach of good manners at the dining table.

And yet there is even a worst scenario. Meals are served two or three times separately, depending upon the unpredictable timings of those who are individually present and “ready” for meals. The arrangement has a semblance of a restaurant planted at home.

The difference is that there are no bills.

We cannot deny that ordinarily meals taste better where there is a company. We tend to over-eat when we are in a company. What can be a better company than one’s own family.

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Ne’mat In fact feeding means food, which is a necessity of life. The daily engagement for meals is gratifying. To do so with family is a particular enjoyment. It is a “divine grace” (Ne’mat) which is taken for granted.

Don’t we keep our table spread with special dishes set out to await the arrival of our dear and near ones from a distant country as a part of the tradition of receiving them from abroad? They may not be hungry! But the dishes do not go waste!

Meals are often the only reason when the family are together and can pass on dishes to one another in a display of mutual affection.

I had a personal experience of how gainful it is to have meals together. A long company with an obstinate malarial fever and the consequent weakness robbed me of my appetite. Meals would go back from the bed either untouched or little consumed.

I needed to feed myself if I were to regain strength and begin to move about. I needed an incentive for this. I decided to be assisted to the dining table and join the family for meals. It worked!

To certain tribes in East Africa, it is almost “religious” to relish meals together from one large common platter (thaal) in complete silence. Perhaps any among them who engaged in talking meant less morsels for him.

Remorse The remorse for having lost the most enjoyable daily moments of partaking meals together in the family is felt after the head of the family has grown old and himself needs a company over meals when the children also will have grown up and left either for higher studies or emigrated abroad or married away or established their own separate homes.

The question is of priorities. Does not family come first before shop and business? The shop or business eventually parts when the 76

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head of the family grows old but the family does not part with him.

There comes a time when rushing in for meals and out again to business becomes a matter of the past in the later part of the life.

However, the memory of the past haunts. If only the past could be relived this time with wisdom, so that what was cooked and served that day and what the day before is remembered.

The family members who take meals together and as equals, stay together and are dependable.

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22

FAMILY BUSINESS RISKS FAMILY RELATION UNLESS…

The tradition of a family partnership business in the community continues. We are slow in grasping the values and advantages of a corporate business in which members of other families join to pool in their resources for greater advantages and competitiveness in the market.

The biggest liability in a family business has nothing to do with its financial aspect. It is with the tradition itself of a family business in which the investment is more in the contentment of status quo than in the sharpening of vision ahead.

So two or three brothers establish a successful family business and conduct it in a typical day to day impromptu business decisionmaking system. Or the brothers may have inherited the family business from the father who was the sole proprietor, and they were assisting him in the business.

The problem is likely to arise later on when the children of the brothers grow up. They now being adults and as cousins join to assist in the business or some of them being professionals with different careers still have “interest in decision-making” on behalf of their respective fathers, whether alive or deceased.

The bond of collective concern and trust between an uncle and nephews or between cousins cannot be the same as that which is likely between brothers.

Dividends What was a successful family business is now either wound up or fragmented. The most likely dividends are in the form of a quarrel or mis-understanding only to sour the hitherto cordial families’ relation.

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Our elders had a saying in Gujarati, which rhymed as follows: Baap na dikrao kahe’wa’e bha’ee.

Teona dikrao kahe’wa’e pitra’ee, Pachhi na dikrao vach-che nathi sagha’ee It translates as follows: Sons of a father are brothers, Their sons are called cousins, And their succeeding sons are no relatives.

The message in the saying is clear and that is, the strong blood relation, among brothers, which is necessary to make a business function in a viable partnership loses its viability when their sons, as cousins step in as a succeeding generation.

Misunderstandings leading to mistrust are now most likely among the partners or shareholders to sour or even severe the families’ relations.

Wisdom It is wisdom therefore to establish or operate a family business on a shares-holding basis with regular meetings of the Board of Directors and an Annual General Meeting of Shareholders and to ensure that such meetings take place factually and not by mere penning minutes for mere a statutory compliance. The tradition of formal meetings need be established so that there are no mis-understandings because the consequences do spill over into families’ relation.

There should be a carefully phrased with a vision a provision for transfer of shares in the Memorandum and Articles of Association of the family company so that transfers, as and when the need arises, are cordial in the event of death or retirement of a family share-holder. The number of Directors though remains restricted for a better consensus in decision-making and this is regardless of any increase among the share-holding cousins or successors.

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The family company can sponsor other subsidiary companies only later to be sold off to the members of the succeeding generations of the families.

A matured understanding among the members of a family in a business or businesses has more benefit in their relation as members of a large extended family outweighing the values attached to monetary benefits from the business.

Allah swt bestows great “barakaat� (grace) and rewards to those who endeavour to maintain good relation with their relatives regardless of any mis-understanding now and then, and this indeed by itself results in a very paying business.

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23

YOUTH IN A FAMILY

It is normal for a youth, mostly boys in our society, to be scolded or reproved by his parents, especially the father. This can be severe and for a good reason.

The reaction from the youth, if he is arrogant and inconsiderate, can be in one of many forms. It may include either shutting himself into his room and avoiding a meal or storming out of the house and returning very late.

The youth may do even worse. He may purposely show a sign of an open defiance by repeating the same behaviour for which he was scolded,.

While both the parents are in silent pain over the improper reaction of their son, the mother would show more the sign of anxiety and restlessness until her son regains his composure. It is possible that she would miss her sound sleep and concentration in her house chores in the mean time. She may even wrongly shift the blame for the situation on her husband, when she too had earlier shared with him the anger against the son.

While the son may continue sulking for a day or two, the parents, having fulfilled their parental obligation, must conduct themselves like they normally do in their relation to him, as if nothing serious had happened..

However, there comes a time in life when the youth repays emotionally. He too, later in life, becomes a father and if the scene is repeated in the family, the difference being in the change of the roles.

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Words not Easy The son will realise the pain he inflicted upon his parents, especially the mother because of his improper reaction. Some times, the parents may not be around in this world to approach and ask forgiveness. And if they are, the words may not be easy.

This silent pain haunts only those youths who are good. They will at least keep remembering their parents in their prayers – “O’ my Lord! Have compassion on them, as they brought me up (when I was) little” (al Qur’an - 17:24).

But the best of youths are those who can appreciate at the time of rebuke from the parents that the anger of the parents is a healthy manifestation of affection, care and concern and they should be grateful to Allah swt that they have such caring parents when there are examples of some parents who wrongly pamper and spoil their children.

There was a painful experience rightly suffered by someone at the age of 12 years. His mother could not go on with her valid words of anger and pain when she saw the remorseful eyes of her son getting moistened; Instead she sobbed and walked away not wanting to see his tears.

The boy was very much moved but, at that small age, he did not know what to do physically to comfort the mother. He thought when he got an year older he would know how to comfort her if such an emotional situation arose again. But that was not to be.

Before long the mother died of an ailment of less than 30 hours – aged 32.

It pays for the parents either jointly or singly to sit and discuss and explain “parental feelings” to the teenage children whenever opportunities present themselves and prompt the children to shed away their shyness in expressing their love for the parents to the parents. Normally, this role is of a religious teacher. A culture of shyness should be conquered by the overwhelming tide of love which children have for the parents.

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If a couple of tender words are still hard to come by then a nonverbal communication to express love is a family culture of hug, which many families sadly lack. A hug by the children, small or adult, of the mother involving a caress and touch of the mother has a tremendous effect of giving to her a sense of inner gratification and prompts in her a thought of gratitude to Allah swt. An impromptu nonverbal dua that crosses her mind for them on such occasions has greater weight spiritually than the formal verbal ones on other occasions.

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24

WHEN LOVE BECOMES POTENTIAL LIABILITY FOR DAUGHTER

The daughter who has been raised in a family with a greater comfort and taste for life and made her into believing that all that is a necessity in life, runs a greater risk of a marriage break-down The parents may innocently and yet wrongly equate the provision of what they term as “quality life� for the daughter to an obligation of natural love and affection for the daughter.

The parents may even be made to provide the life of luxuries to the daughter by wanting her to have the best part of her life while she was still with her parents for fear that the life which lies ahead for her after marriage may not be a happy one in terms of her personal needs.

In fact the trend of such a mind-set on the part of the parents is almost a surety that her life may be normally a comfortable one after marriage, but indeed not a happy one if happiness was defined to her according to what she had experienced before the marriage.

Now it is wrong to assume that such a trend of the provision of luxury being equated to love is common or to be found only with the families which are financially sound. Some rich families are highly disciplined in managing house-hold and personal expenses and also sharp in defining what are the necessities of life; and yet there may be other families who may drift or stray beyond their means to ensure a life of luxury and extravagance as a normal obligation to their daughters.

It is equally wrong to assume that all such daughters fail to make a thrifty (economically disciplined) wife. It is also wrong to believe that the risks of a marriage break down do not exist or a marriage 84

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is not likely to go to the rock where a difference in the standards of life style does arise.

There is yet another risk to a marriage, even greater, where the daughter has been conditioned into a life-style which is characterized by the independence of decision-making and freedom of personal movements.

Sulking The daughter is graduated into taking disadvantage of the parents’ love and gets their original prudent and sound answer of “NO” to her questionable requests reversed to “YES” on almost every occasion when she resorts to sulking.

She would often make her own prior decisions and commitments even knowing they would be unacceptable to the parents because later she has her own ways of making the parents tolerate them – either, all because of their blinded love for her or because she was already “spoilt” in their up-bringing of her.

The parents begin to build in a child the behaviour of obstinacy and then ascribe it as normal child obstinacy while not able to draw a line between childish obstinacy and disobedience after a certain age upwards.

Parents blinded by misplaced love for their daughters seem to forget that they are raising them as trust and the daughters will spend much greater part of their life as someone’s wife and someone’s daughter-in-law with much responsibilities falling on them. As such they have to be and be seen as very responsible, matured, disciplined and respectful members of the husband’s family.

Is it wonder therefore that there are examples of a third-partysuggestion that a family with an ideal boy ready for marriage should send a proposal for a hand in marriage of a girl of a particular family and the answer is: “He chhokri panke nai posa’e” (This girl – will not fit in our family). The guilt lies not with the girl but with the parents.

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The path to a poor up-bringing is often paved with supposedly good intentions for the child. It is a good up-bringing of the spouses which can decide to a fair extent a success of a marriage. And it is a successful marriage which basically provides a “Quality Life” whatever may be the station of life, and more, importantly, it has a bearing on the fate of the spouses after death – such valued is the institution of marriage in the sight of Allah swt in the divine design for the procreation in the human race.

However, it is understood that not every marriage that has not resulted into a divorce can be ticked off as successful, and further, not every marriage deemed by the husband as successful but privately not by the wife can pass the marks of success.

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25

CHILDHOOD NICKNAME CAN ORIGINATE IN FAMILY

A girl confided to her friend that a proposal for her marriage had been received by her parents and that she was yet to be consulted before a decision was made. After congratulating her for the matrimonial prospects, the friend inquired the name of the suitor and then burst into a hilarious laughter when it was given to her much to the embarrassment of the girl.

The boy appeared to be popularly known by a funny nickname that was attached to his name. There was nothing that the boy could do about it. It stuck firmly as if it was stated in his Birth Certificate.

The girl could not fancy herself being known in the community as Mrs. of the husband bearing that funny nickname. Her children too who were to follow from the marriage and would include daughters would suffer bearing that funny surname!

Strangely the girl’s dislike welled up in her for any boy with that nickname when she had not even known or met the boy yet. It would however be silly on her part to give to her parents that silly nickname as the not-very-silly reason for her refusal of the proposal.

Later when the couple met according to the arrangements made by the parents for each to assess each other’s liking, she felt, or she thought that she felt, much to her relief, that she did not like him after all, as she had prayed even before having seen him.

On the other hand, all the rest in the family thought the boy to be a suitable young suitor with an average stature and complexion, apart from his other good merits. She tried hard not to link her dislike of his fair appearance to his funny nickname.

How should the parents of the girl handle the refusal of their daughter when they take her decision as sincere though surprisingly a wrong one with regard to such a good proposal ?

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Life-long Torture The practice of slapping nick-names, though demeaning, is not uncommon in any community. However, nicknames which are funny or outright abhorrent are a life-long torture for the victims (bearers) unless they choose to resign to them in order to get on with their lives. That would mean accepting and answering to the nick-names when called or addressed.

In some cases, though very rare, the nickname entailing the name clings obstinately and is mentioned in an obituary or engraved on the tombstone for better introduction.

Some of the nick-names are the type which is so strange that one would hesitate to repeat, to clear the doubt, if the bearers introduce themselves by their nicknames. Strangely enough, a fair number of cases of nick-naming originate at home.

One common example is of a tradition which perhaps still exists.

The grandfather or an elderly person in the family fondly allots nicknames to the small children in the family, such as would befit their appearance, complexion or other physical peculiarities. They then become known in the family more by such names, however funny or embarrassing these may happen to be, than by their real names, and later on in the community also during their adult life.

Such a nickname is likely to become later in the life a substitute for the family-surname also or attached to the surname for the victims and also for their children to be born.

There is yet one more example. Some older children, in rare cases, have a temporary weakness of bed-wetting. There is a tendency of the parents slapping a pertinent nickname to such a child in the false assumption that it will taunt him and therefore deter bedwetting. Instead of sympathising for the weakness, the child is humiliated, as intended, and agonised further only to prolong the weakness. What is worse, however, is that the nickname assumes permanency even after the weakness has disappeared.

The holy Prophet said: “Give good names to the children�. There are cases where this advice is followed rightly only to be spurned 88

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rudely by supplanting the very good name with a nickname often by no other than the parents themselves.

Odd Exception A person with an abhorrent nickname sees himself as an odd exception with regard to his social status. He has the nagging feeling of having been made odd in the society. It nags him as a slur on his personality. He however resigns to it because he finds that there is nothing else he can do about it. To resist it is to intensify its agony.

No wonder that the holy Qur’an has specifically prohibited calling others by nicknames in the verse 49;11; “O you who believe!.... ....and do not find fault with your own people nor call one another by nicknames; evil is a bad name after faith, and whoever does not turn (lamm yatub), these it is that are the unjust�. A person is therefore deemed to be sinfully wronged each time he is addressed or referred to by a nickname which offends him.

As nick-naming is common in a society which chooses to tolerate the practice, children have to be taught to be alert not to attract or fall for it. It is a constant exercise of caution and tact. To ignore a nickname when it is given is being wise, while to respond or react to it is to perpetuate it. To show anger amounts to offering oneself as a source of fun to other children and is a guarantee for the nickname to remain stuck for lifetime.

The advice to the parents therefore is not to allow nicknaming at home. They should also brief the child how to be circumspect to ward off any such a possibility outside the home; and how to ignore and defeat a start of any nickname. More importantly, the parents should instruct the child not to call others by their nicknames.

The extended family should also avoid giving cousins similar names under a common surname. When a similarity of names exists in a local community, one child is then distinguished from the other by a nickname.

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26

MATRIMONY ?

LET “CHEMISTRY” COME INTO PLAY

We do come across examples of a good-looking boy having married a girl by his own choice, who is not relatively as good-looking and yet the marriage is a big success.

There can most likely be no reason for this except that he truly liked “her” as a “charming” person, and therefore he also liked her look, her complexion, her height, whatever, and also her other physical characteristics, whatever these were.

This “charm” is called personal “chemistry”. This chemistry can be assertive enough to transcend even a strong racial or a cultural barrier. We also see a happy blooming family of parents of different race or culture. This is because the chemistry of two minds clicked.

Compatibility is the key to a successful marriage and it is more influenced by how the minds of the couple become readily attuned to each other’s when they meet and talk, and talk. Facial beauty or complexion becomes secondary or even irrelevant.

It is rightly said that beauty is in the eyes of beholder.

The real beauty, which can make the wife endearing to the husband, is primarily her sharp intelligence. It is this, as a base, which then compliments her other qualities, like her general knowledge, her sense of humour and reasoning, her modesty, her apparent capacity for single-minded love, and the formulation of her thoughts and values - to make herself as the charming wife to the husband. A congenial disposition can be an added attraction.

This ‘personal beauty’ of the wife does not pale away or diminish but increases with the advancement of her age, while the fate of the beauty of the “look” is not the same.

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It is this beauty of personality that the husband would want the wife to pass on to their children.

But then this beauty is not revealed by a girl or a woman from a distance or from her pictures. It is an interaction between the two minds and hearts, which reveal this beauty, and the chemistry is triggered consequently leading to wedlock.

Now what message can we pick up from these every-day examples of personal chemistry for our community? A marriage, which is through a family arrangement or consent after exchange of pictures or a chaperoned momentary meeting, the first and only one, prior to betrothal is not as assuring as that through a chemistry of minds.

Fairness The tradition, as is currently in the community in this respect, is not conducive to leading to fairness for those who are ready for marriage and are extremely “charming” as persons and as prospective spouses but only the “look” is all that is visible for assessment from a distance; and all persons are not “good-looking” in any community by the respective community’s yardsticks.

There was a time when education was what seemed to be a privilege denied to many, mostly the girls. Therefore often the educational merit of a girl or a boy was enough to out-weigh any consideration about their look. This is no longer the situation when now most of the girls, like boys, are fairly well educated, and therefore a highly educated girl or boy no longer has an edge when it comes to how they “look from a distance however short it may be”.

On the path of a matrimonial arrangement and pursuit, we have come from very far, and therefore our move forward has yet to continue. There was a time when traditionally a marriage became so arranged that the spouses met and saw each other for the first time only on the occasion of their wedding. Photographs were an early invention then, and even later women were not allowed to be photographed. Travelling documents were issued to them with bold words “PURDANASHIN” stamped across the blank space for Managing Family Issues

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a photograph. Burqa and not hijab was imposed on girls upon reaching the age of maturity

A Gamble Compatibility was a gamble. If a marriage survived despite an incompatibility, it was through a cultural commitment within a family and avoidance of stigma in the community.

Fortunately, things have since eased to some extent. A couple intending marriage can now be made to sit in a company of family members with a view to “seeing� each other personally.

It is often boys who now make a decision which is still mostly based more on what is visible, that is, the appearance of the girl, as he sees it, and not an insight into her thoughts, values, attitudes and aptitudes commensurate with her level of intelligence. The best choice is therefore often missed if the criterion is restricted to only her appearance and not to her personality as well which can be very charming and congenial to attract any boy who is serious about making a sound decision.

Personality Let us be fair to all girls, whatever their appearance and physical built. Make opportunities available to them to reveal their individual intelligence and personality as well. Such a revelation can come about only over a period of time in a course of meetings at the community’s organized gatherings when girls will have summoned their self-confidence to exchange thoughts on various subjects without feeling jittery that matrimony is the aim for the exchange.

This is a serious issue which touches a large number of families in the community. It has a respectable solution which has not yet been pressed within the parameter of our traditions. Traditions in the past have changed and can still change further for a good cause and results if trust is placed and the vision is sharpened with courage - such courage as is a credit to any leadership.

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Let us all rise to the need for ensuring fairness to all daughters in devising “chaperoned opportunities� for them to show not their appearance from a distance but their charm in personality which can make appearance a secondary merit.

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WHEN WIFE THE ONLY SOURCE OF EMOTIONAL SUPPORT

The wife was puzzled to find that the husband seemed suddenly and unusually quiet at home and no longer appeared cool and composed. He showed some anger towards the children even on small issues like the noise they normally occasion around the house.

What even bothered the wife more was that the husband seemed cool in his behaviour of love, which is part of life between couples.

The only extent to which the wife could venture was to ask the husband if he was well and he assured her that he was.

She knew that there was something haunting him but he would not confide it to her. Did it have anything to do with her, his place of work or what else.

She knew that he would get very angry if she consulted someone close to the family and he came to know of it. In the meantime, the wife kept herself engaged in speculations of different shades for possible reasons for the sudden reclusive behaviour of the husband and this began to take a toll on her behaviour also towards the husband.

Serious Issue The fact was that the husband suddenly found himself faced with a serious issue that must be kept secret from all in the community while he was thinking hard how to diffuse it or manage it.

He felt lonely and needed desperately an emotional support; someone to talk to, share the anxiety and lessen the mental strain.

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her discretion in keeping secrets. He had experiences of how lightly she took in keeping the family secrets from her mother and sisters.

The wife was still young and it falls upon the husband to explain and train the wife about the reality of every family life, which is characterized by issues that needed kept in confidence. The loyalty is first to the husband and his family and not the family of her parents.

The wife can be also a daughter-in-law in the family and her loyalty to the family ranks the same as that of a wife to her husband in the matter of keeping family secrets.

And yet, there are examples of wives who are very much dependable on their discretion in keeping family secrets. It is for them to see that the husband is rest assured in this respect.

There can also be times when the husband can be through tough times of life like the risk of losing or loss of job, multiplication of debts and such others whose information cannot be shared with other than the wife.

The husband on such occasions need the wife to be the source of a great emotional support and a ray of hope however desperate the situation may seem to her.

The worst that the wife may often do is to sink into a state of hopelessness even deeper and make the husband slip off from whatever the little courage and strength he is holding onto in the hope for a sight of light at the end of the tunnel.

The wife need be a good actor in her role of pretence that she sees the situation not as worse as it seems to the husband and that apart from struggle, the greater source of hope is the faith in Allah swt.

The husband always remembers the wife’s crucial emotional and moral support he gained during the time when he needed these most, and sees her as more endearing.

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DISCIPLINARIAN PARENTS ON THE WRONG FOOTING

Arguments between father and son are not uncommon in a family.

However, on one such occasion this argument between a father and his adolescent son was more energetic. The energy was in the form of more ‘heat’ to intensify the argument than ‘light’ to pacify it. The argument came to an abrupt stop when the son suddenly blurted “You have always showed a dislike for me - more when I was a child”.

The father later questioned the mother of the son whether he was not affectionate enough to their son when a child, to buy him things he wanted - by stretching his own limited means, - and whether he did not generally act as a good father to the son during his childhood.

And then the father asked a very pertinent question: Was he not a good disciplinarian father out of affection for his child?

“Disciplinarian” he was, but the attempt was to discipline not the child but also the nature in the child over which the child himself had no control, and therefore the affection for the child was seen by the child as a dislike for him.

Bundle of Energy A small child gains and therefore expends the physical energy more than the mental one. He is virtually a bursting bundle of physical energy. He cannot keep himself still for any long period of time.

When he wants to walk, he finds himself running. He would run instead of walking briskly to the refrigerator for a can of juice. He would sprint ahead and then wait for his parents to catch up with him when they all stroll together in the street. Even in the state of sleep, the child shows his bursting energy. He changes his sides quickly flinging his limbs in the process in his sleep 96

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While on a pilgrimage, watch the young children who join their father in the congregation of salaat when the recitation from the Qur’an during Qiyaam is long. They, though young for the obligatory prayers, but some at times join the father in the prayers. Their hands and legs cannot remain still while the long recitation from the Qur’an continues. With some, there are also sudden body-jerks as if caused by a prick of a pin. This is a typical nature of a child, a healthy one.

Now what can be more hateful to the child than to be made to sit still and quiet in a corner as a punishment, or for want of silence in the house while the father is entertaining visitors or while quietly engaged in reading newspapers. The father even forgets for some moments the restraint that he has imposed on the child.

How unkind it is to the child when he is made to sit erect on a chair with his eyes glued boringly into a book while he can hear his friends, among the children in the neighbourhood, expending their extra energy by playing in the backyard of the house, and he is normally with them as usual at that time of the day or week-end.

Dictates of his Nature Why the child should be subjected to sitting still and quiet for even half an hour when his productive concentration even in a lively class in the school is not that much long, and for good reason.

A child may be watching his favourite programme of sports on a TV Channel, and yet, despite his intense engrossment, he would suddenly stand up and go through a solo motion of imitating the players in short spells of energy releasing stunts, only to sit back and resume watching the programme. Here is a healthy child responding to the dictates of the nature in him while the parents want to discipline him against that nature.

When the parents choose to be disciplinarian on the wrong footing, the likely reaction from the child can be either to rebel against any such measures of discipline, which militates against a child’s nature or to tolerate the measures only to misconstrue them as the parents’ dislike for the child. This is an unhealthy way of Managing Family Issues

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manifesting parental concern or affection. The memory lingers on when the childhood experiences are emotionally unpleasant.

One more caution. Engaging the child in long sessions of prayers regularly with or like adults is most likely to develop in him a dislike for the prayers while the intention for such engagements is to make him to like the prayers. The reason for this is no different from what is being discussed in this Paper.

So when the child is heard jumping noisily under the shower while also shouting and splashing in the bath-room, bring onto the face not a frown in silent protest of his heady behaviour, but a broad smile in silent acknowledgment of his healthy behaviour. Of course, the expression on the face can be anything but smiling when or if the behaviour exceeds the acceptable norm of a child’s nature, and that is when the disciplinarian parents are on the right footing with their disciplining to earn the child’s respect and not perception of dislike!

To each of us, childhood is not a matter of moments but memories.

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FAVOURING BOYS IS WRONGING GIRLS AMONG CHILDREN

The parents were preparing themselves for a long holiday, the first in a decade, now that the eldest son got married. The holiday did not materialize.

The daughter-in-law, though intelligent and fairly well educated, did not demonstrate such a commanding personality with fair degrees of self-confidence as would enable her to take care of the house and exercise control over the small younger brothers of the husband during the intended absence of the parents.

The daughter-in-law herself doubted her ability to manage. She thought it wise and safe to avoid the responsibility though she sadly knew that she was becoming the cause for the parents of the house to miss their long anticipated holiday. Her husband too was extremely disappointed.

If the daughter-in-law lacked self-confidence, it is because she, as a daughter in her family, was groomed and prepared that way through parental neglect or lack of foresight or both owing to ignorance on the part of her father. There is now a cost...a cost of her respect in the eyes of her parent-in-laws or even worse, .her esteem as a responsible member of the family.

In his relation and conduct with his two children, the daughter the elder by an year, and son the younger, the father had more time for the son. They had topics of common interest to talk. The main topic was sports and in the course of discussion other topics, like the son’s school, the son’s friends and the son’s aspirations then crept in during the father’s leisure time and at meals, often in the presence of the daughter.

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The Lesser Child The daughter, though elder of the two, felt that she was the lesser child of the two. The son in his relation with his father felt himself like an adult, sharing the importance of the father in the family, and thus he had the advantage of a springboard for developing self-confidence and his independently distinct personality.

On the other hand, the daughter was often driven to seeking comfort in the company of her mother. She found herself sharing with her mother the common obedience not only to the father but also to the son, who saw himself as the substitute of the father in the moments of his absence at home. She too vied for selfimportance, self-respect and self-confidence but these were not let coming her way.

The imbalanced treatment of daughters in favour of sons, as they are raised together, is not uncommon in families. The scenario is no different even where the girl is the only child. If it is a culture of gender bias that obstinately survives as a legacy, it goes against all the norms and values set by Islam which exhort greater kindness and emotional support to daughters but instead they are denied even the equal justice only to bruise their emotions irreparably.

The consequential effect on the personality of the daughters is likely to show when the personality fails to assert itself for a fruitful role as wife and then mother in her later married life.

Self Intimidation The mistake, disastrous as it is, which the father often commits is to perceive his daughter in her mother’s image of docility (meekness). He hardly realizes that the wife’s apparent docility has the elements of a matrimonial loyalty while the daughter’s presumed docility is nothing short of an emotional intimidation with disastrous results. Such a daughter when assuming the role of wife would submit readily to the continuation of similar docility more through self-intimidation on the presumption of normalcy in the matrimonial life, her higher level of education and aspirations than her mother’s notwithstanding.

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What is required is that daughters on the path to becoming mothers in every succeeding generation are helped in building their emotional capacity to muster greater and greater strength of faith and self-confidence. This is the key to meeting newer and newer challenges as they surface in their role as mothers while life gets more complex and economic survival more difficult as time passes.

Let us remember that the best of Allah’s creation is the human race. It is comprised of families. Each family as a unit originates and revolves around the institution of motherhood. The child-girl of today with a small period of time in her family is the mother of tomorrow for a greater period of time in the family of others.

Therefore, the daughter may seem weak in terms of her physique but her greater strength exceeding that of the son lies in her tremendous potential capacity for positive emotions to fulfil successfully her more challenging role as mother, which role is crucial in the flourishing of the human race.

If the children are flowers, then girls are the ones who bloom sooner to give out fragrance of life to more flowers to repeat the cycles over and over again.

What an irony when it is often the daughters who prove more dependable to the aged parents in terms of affection and loyalty, which also are unfortunately taken for granted in the society.

And even a better and lasting gain is: “He to whom is born a daughter and does not harm her, does not deny her, and does not favour his son over her, Allah will grant him Paradise for her sake�.

(Hadith).

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WHEN TIME-KEEPING BECOMES A CONTENTIOUS FAMILY ISSUE

The son-in-law ceased joining at a dinner when visiting the family of his wife to collect her back home on her periodical visits. So the wife too skipped the dinner with the parents..

The practise was that with due respect to the son-in-law, the family would begin the dinner after his arrival though he had not been regular in keeping his time. However, on one occasion the family could not wait for him as there were other guests also present for the dinner.

One of the common small issues, which can shape into a big one, is the habitual failure of either the husband or wife keeping time much to the inconvenience or even frustration of others. It is even worse when both fail, as of habit, to keep time.

One of the aspects of a family discipline which a family can be known openly by others as not upholding, is to mark its time keeping and sense of time value.

Imagine, the esteem in which a family is held when a host gives it the time for arrival at a function half an hour earlier than he gives to other guest families.

For such families who are not conscious of the inconvenience they cause to others, “The only things that start on time are those that they are late for�.

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