SINGLE MOTHERS: Marriage plan won't work

2009/11/03

MARIAM MOKHTAR, Ipoh

SO now, women, single mothers in particular, should be viewed as a product or commodity, like a prized car or, maybe in rural areas, a prized cow. They are to be treated as chattels. And men will be rewarded for marrying them.

And for the single mum? Will being married (or remarried) be consolation enough for the woman?

Wan Ubaidah Omar, the Women, Family and Health Committee chairman in Kelantan, made her attention-grabbing suggestion at the Kelantan assembly for men to be given awards for increasing their quota. Incidentally, quota is her definition for Muslim men's religious entitlement to four wives.

Unsurprisingly, all who agreed with her were men.

Her intention to alleviate the plight of single mothers is good and genuine.

However, she has been deluded into thinking that they can be treated as trophies. Her statement only reinforces harmful attitudes towards women. It is also discriminatory, degrading and objectionable.

Her suggestion, coupled with the reaction of the men in the assembly, is a mockery of the responsible position and the office of which she chairs. Why treat only the symptom, and not address the cause?

It is a fact that there is an inordinately high divorce rate among Muslim men when compared with the other races.

The reason for this is the Muslim man's unilateral right to divorce his wife at will and for any reason. His right, as far as he is concerned, is to have four wives, to demand obedience, to beat his wife, to have sex on demand and to divorce his wife at will.

Yes, we did have laws to halt this apparent ease to divorce. But when certain sections of society objected to the amended Family Law, the lawmakers buckled under pressure. And the result? A proliferation of divorce cases.

There will be some who consider my views anti-Islamic, even anti-God. Did He not grant all Muslims the right to be treated as human beings of equal worth and dignity? All I can say is, listen to the many thousands of women who have suffered, who have been denied the right for consultation, who have no prior knowledge, no means of prevention or the ability to negotiate terms of divorce. Some of them have had no redress, several years after the divorce.

Sure, there are laws to prevent "easy" divorce. Few adhere to them and the irresponsible men who were unlucky to be caught were only given minimal fines. Deterrent enough? Hardly.

Others will remind me of kursus perkahwinan. Of what use is this course when men are told how to beat their wives so it does not show, places to go for subsequent marriages where the laws are lax, and their rights as a man, without taking into account respect and equality for the woman, his wife-to-be? All of these are laughable.

Wan Ubaidah was asked what was being done to reduce the number of divorce cases and what efforts were being taken by the state government to help single mothers. Her idea of rewarding men if they were to marry these single women is no solution. It might even add to the problem.

A marriage of convenience, for this is what it sounds like, will have no solid foundation based on mutual respect, trust and communication.

Wan Ubaidah claimed that there were 16,500 registered single mothers below the age of 60 in Kelantan and this figure did not include those who had been left in the lurch by their husbands.

She said one dilemma facing some single mothers was that many of them could not register at the Welfare Department or related agencies because their husbands had left them without filing for divorce.

So how then are these abandoned women to remarry, since they might be committing bigamy? These women are not the problem. It is the men.

Furthermore, this problem is not a recent phenomenon and whipping is not going to be the panacea of all evils. The answer is to treat the problem and not a symptom of it.

Ours is a traditional patriarchal society. It would be prudent to look at the problem as a whole, and in the context of the 21st century.

In today's society, family is important, but so are money, education and skills. Women are now more educated, more financially independent with more opportunities open to them.

In comparison, some of the men she speaks of are poor, less educated, unskilled, have few social bonds, few social skills and turn to vice and violence easily.

We need to change the way we bring up and educate our boys, and turn them into responsible, caring and law-abiding brothers, fathers and husbands who will respect women and treat them with equality.

We also need to focus on building strong, long-lasting, happy relationships with a solid foundation based on trust, mutual respect and effective communication. Love, not mistaken for lust, might be a helpful ingredient.

Amend the laws so that irresponsible men who mistreat their wives will think twice about doing so. Introduce effective deterrents, not minimal fines. And amend laws that discriminate against women in our society.

Don't take the easy way out and tell men to take on single mothers. Why create more problems?