Rigidity or Rectitude

Rigidity or Rectitude

1987 6 June 12-13 Rigidity or Rectitude (559) In the course of an article called, “Who Will Bell the Hindu Cat?” (The Hindustan Times, 6 April, 1987) Mr. Mohan Guru Swami has made an uncalled for remark about Islam on its imperviousness to change, “when he feels that it should be open to popular opinion.” The bone which he has chosen to pick is “the payment of alimony and the rigid attitude displayed by most Islamic leaders in this country.”

Mr. Swami does not appear to appreciate that “change” just for the sake of change is not anybody’s idea of good sense. It is only when a change is for the better that it is welcome. Let us consider what would happen if the Islamic laws pertaining to the payment of alimony were altered in favour of the divorced wife. Women might then find themselves clamped in the fetters of a ruined marriage, subjected to neglect, degradation and even physical abuse, for, a husband, unable, or unwilling to enter into the financial commitment of alimony would become psychologically incapable of meting out just treatment to an unwanted wife who had already been mentally (if not physically) discarded by him. This would hardly be a change for the better, would it? And we already have the example of all the Hindu wives who have committed suicide in order to avoid such treatment, for it is only recently that Hindu women have begun to surmount the legal hurdles to divorce. Even those few who have managed to do so can seldom hope to remarry. It is significant that in 1985, there were no fewer than 837 dowry deaths in this country, (quoted by Shanoo Bijlani in the Reader’s Digest, March, 1987, p. 137) and one can imagine what battering and harassment led to this toll of women’s lives.

Another baneful consequence of changing the laws on maintenance in favour of ex-wives could be that men might begin to look upon the bonds of marriage as little better than shackles. They might even, as has happened on a large scale for the same reasons in Western countries, begin to indulge in illegal cohabitation. The time-honoured institution of marriage might finally crumble away for want of support, and women would then find themselves in the unenviable and insecure positions of mistresses and concubines. They could not then claim even temporary maintenance if their paramours chose to turn them out. They might even have to suffer the ultimate distress and humiliation of having to support themselves during the period of cohabitation! It is clear that change of this sort could lead only to social evils, and to contemplate it would imply a shallowness of thought and lack of foresight of the worst order.

It should be borne in mind that divorce in Islam is the exception, not the rule, and that it is incumbent upon a married man to discharge the responsibility of proper maintenance of his spouse throughout his married life. When, in exceptional cases, a divorce takes place, Islamic law has deemed it practical that he should be required to make only temporary provision for his ex-wife’s maintenance.

It should be clear from the matrimonial debacles in the West and the sate of cruel impasse in Hindu society, that Islam has shown the greatest of wisdom in recognizing that, although distasteful, divorce must be legal and separation must be easy.