Woman in Society
WOMEN IN ANCIENT SOCIETY
In almost every inhabited corner of the globe, the societies of ancient times regarded the status of women as being inferior to that of man. “In Athens,” says the Encyclopaedia Britannica, “woman’s status had degenerated to that of slaves. Wives were secluded in their homes, had no education and few rights, and were considered by their husbands no better than chattels ... In ancient Rome, a woman’s legal position was one of complete subordination, first to the power of her father or brother and later to that of her husband, who held paternal power over his wife. In the eyes of the law, women were regarded as imbeciles.”1
The reason for the ill-treatment of women in ancient times was the prevalence of superstition. There were, in fact, very few matters upon which irrational beliefs of one sort or another had not been adopted. Such perverted thinking became elevated to the status of religion and, as such, had a pervasively baneful influence upon all human relations.
Speculation was another mode of thought which produced strange, and often pernicious results. Ridiculing the thought processes of the ancient Greeks, Bertrand Russell writes: “Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wive’s mouths.”2
Christianity did little to improve this situation, having attached great importance to the erroneous belief given in the very first book of the Bible, that it had been Eve’s wrongdoing which had caused Adam’s ejection from the garden of Eden. Referring to women in general in this context, the Encyclopaedia Britannica says: “[According to Christianity] they were regarded as temptresses, responsible for the fall of Adam, and as second class human beings.”3 With such a myth ever-present in the collective consciousness of society, it is little wonder that women were allotted an inferior position in both religious and secular matters. In the first letter addressed to the Corinthians, St. Paul says: “For the man is not of the woman; but the woman for the man.”4 In this, St. Paul is simply reaffirming what is laid down as gospel truth in the Old Testament Book of Genesis.
WOMEN’S STATUS IN ISLAM
In ancient times, thanks to the unreasoning and unreasonable approach fostered by superstition, speculation and other forms of irrational thinking, woman came to be considered inferior, one distressing result of which was that she was deprived, among many other things, of the right to inherit property. She was not even entitled to a share of family property. How great an incapacitating factor this was may be judged from the neglect and degrading treatment which women had to suffer for centuries. It was not until the advent of Islam, that, for the first time in the history of mankind, women were given their due legal rights over property. The famous historian J.M. Roberts writes:
Its coming was in many ways revolutionary. It kept women, for example, in an inferior position, but gave them legal rights over property not available to women in many European countries until the nineteenth century. Even the slave had rights and inside the community of the believers there were no castes nor inherited status. This revolution was rooted in a religion which—like that of the Jews—was not distinct from other sides of life, but embraced them all.5
The same point has been made about ancient India by a retired Chief Justice of the Delhi Court, Mr. Rajindar Sachar:
... Historically, Islam had been very liberal and progressive in granting property rights to women. It is a fact that there were no property rights given to Hindu women until 1956, when the Hindu Code Bill was passed, whereas Islam had granted these rights to Muslim women over 1400 years ago.6
This is not, however, just a matter of anteriority. What is significant is that, in granting women equal status and their proper rights, Islam set up an important precedent which had as far-reaching an effect on the civilization of the times as western civilization has had on the world of today. If Islam was able to accomplish such an ‘evolution in human affairs, it was because it did not remain just a philosophical creed but went on to conquer most parts of the inhabited world of the times.
In the world of today, even those commentators who generously acknowledge the virtues of Islam often repeat the dictum that Islam has relegated women to an inferior status. But to say that Islam gives women a share in property and then to say at the same time that Islam has degraded women is contradictory. From ancient times till today, the question of inheritance has been the most important social issue and might well be considered the sole criterion of status in society. Entitling women to have a share in property, contrary to the custom of the time, is a clear proof that Islam had no desire to degrade them. Had this been so, the first demonstration of this desire would have been to deprive them of their share in property, a correct and justifiable practice according to the traditions of the times.
It is interesting to see the reverse side of the coin as presented by a recent convert to Islam, namely, the English pop singer, Cat Stevens, now known as Yusuf Islam. Asked by a Jewish woman how he intended to deal with the problem of Islam’s “degradation” of women, he said that he had not actually made a study of women’s status in Islam, but that for his own part, he had, since his conversion, asked his mother to come and stay with him and that he loved looking after her. His relations with his wife had also considerably improved.
In its assessment of the status of women, the western mind has made the same error as was made by ancient man: it has formed opinions based on irrational beliefs. This accounts for latter-day distortions of thought regarding women in the advanced western countries and for the resultant grave distortion in the concept of women.
WOMEN IN MODERN CIVILIZATION
Where modern western man fell deeply into error, was in his blind acceptance of the concept of the equality of the sexes without giving due consideration of what equality—in its best sense—ought to mean, or what in practice it entails. According to modern thinking, giving equal status to women meant bringing them out of their homes and standing them face to face with men in all facets of life without any regard for the practical and moral problems which might ensue. Islam, on the other hand, defines separate roles, and, therefore, separate spheres of work for men and women, since it is natural and realistic to do so. The other great error made by modern western thinkers was to assume that a role which was separate and different, and played out in other than traditionally masculine strongholds, was necessarily of trifling importance—in short, inferior. As such, the West concluded that in giving a separate role to woman Islam gives them an inferior position. Conversely, since it is held in the West (in theory) that women must be given a place in all masculine spheres it is also concluded that the West gives her a superior position.
So modern man imagines that his feminine counterpart has, in actuality, been accorded a superior position. But let us examine what, in fact, is the state of women’s affairs. In the societies of the West, which have attained a high level of material development, theory has yet to be put into practice, and men and women still live and work in their own very separate domains. The status of women is, in practice, almost the same as it was in ancient times, there still being mutually exclusive divisions into male and female spheres, with the corresponding attitudes still very much in evidence. If this were not so, what need would there be for “women’s lib?”
Fourteen hundred years ago, Islam launched a much-needed “women’s lib” movement, whose purpose was to free women from artificial curbs, and to give them the position which any normal human being should have in society. (One instance, for example is to give them a share in family property). This movement raised their status without any sacrifice of femininity or traditional values, and without creating any perversion in society.
Having launched its movement under the guidance of revelation, its Islamic exponents were in no doubt as to what limits should be set to societal change. The West, however, in its preoccupation with modernity, plunged headlong into experimentation with the old order of values, sweeping away traditional moral precepts and “restrictive” conventions. All of this was done under the banners of “reason,” “empiricism,” “logic,” “liberalism,” and so on, but, in actual fact, the whole “liberation” movement has been swamped in a welter of emotion, creating a number of social problems.
UNNATURAL EQUALITY
Selected readings from the Quran were prepared in English by the English Orientalist, Edward William Lane, and were first published in London in book form in 1843. In his foreword, Lane wrote that “the fatal point in Islam was the degradation of woman.” Since then this remark has been regularly taken up as a stick with which to beat Islam. In fact, whenever Islamic affairs were mentioned, it became such a common observation, that not only the enemies of Islam, but also relatively fair-minded writers such as the historian, J.M. Roberts, who did justice to Islam in pointing out its virtues, mentioned it as if it were an established fact.
We have shown in detail, at another point in this book, that this allegation is entirely baseless. The facts are quite the reverse. Islam has, in actual fact, raised the status of woman. If the truth were told, woman’s degradation has come about at the hands of two major civilizations, one ancient and polytheistic, the other modern and atheistic. The former has been culpable both in theory and in practice, while the latter has been so in practice, despite its theorizing to the contrary.
We must never lose sight of the fact that what governed the ethics and lifestyles of ancient polytheistic civilizations were myths. Certain highly fanciful, but obviously baseless suppositions were believed in as truths, and all aspects of human existence were subordinated to them. For instance, ancient man regarded certain natural phenomena, such as the sun and the moon, with the awe of ignorance, and venerated them as deities. Conversely, he supposed certain other phenomena to be inferior, therefore, undeserving of respect. It was into the latter category that women fell, possibly because menstruation and their inability to fight alongside their men folk were interpreted in an adversely superstitious manner. Woman was regarded as the inferior sex and, therefore, deserving of degrading treatment by men.
Modern western civilization has hardly produced a better result in ostensibly exalting the status of women. It may have pronounced men and women equal in every respect and decreed that all work that can be done by a man can be done by a woman too: it may have encouraged women to come out of their homes and try to find a position equal to a man’s in every department of life (hence the slogan, “Don’t make coffee, make policy”); but, in practice, this concept of equality has done more to degrade women than any traditional view could have done. The next chapter deals with this topic in detail.
What is the reason then for this state of affairs? The reason, to put it briefly, is the erroneous concept of absolute equality in western countries. For example, equality between men is held to be an indisputable fact. But if this equality between men is taken to mean that in every field every man can compete with every other man, the upholder of such an unnatural concept should be able to take an Einstein to a boxing ring and expect him to put up a good fight against the heavyweight champion. Conversely, he would also expect the boxer to be able to hold his own while presiding over international, scientific conferences. This may seem laughable, but that is what absolute equality would mean. The Einstein who was at the top of the list in university or science conferences would be seen as a sadly inferior person in a bout with a boxer and the boxer would be completely out of his depth at the conference table. It is clear that applying this rule of equality would result in disaster.
True equality mean equality not in the workplace but in status. Human equality does not mean that every man should be engaged in the same work as everyone else. It means rather that every man should be looked upon with the same respect, and should be able to expect the same treatment, legally and morally.
The error into which the West has fallen is its attempt to establish an unnatural equality in the workplace for men and women. The result is as might have been expected: the greatest inequality in human history has developed between men and women. If men and women are of two different sexes, it is because they were created to serve separate purposes. Place them in their respective fields and they will be equally successful, although in different ways. Place both men and women in the same field, and the women will fail to excel: the men will do better due to their natural abilities. As a result, the women will suffer a fall in status vis-à-vis the men.
Inspired by false notions of equality, a certain country girl once fled her home to seek an independent life in a city intending to make money as men do. She failed, however, to find a place in the world of men. What remained at her disposal now was her femininity. This she traded for an independent life. This independent life was not, however, gained by securing “equality” in social life, it was gained rather by having condescended to become the plaything of men.
Somewhat similar, but on a larger scale, has been the case of western women. The West encouraged women to come out of their homes to earn like men. They did so only to find that it was impossible to have an independent life by working like men in the outside world. The only alternative available to them to making money was their femininity. Like the country girl who fled her home, they had to sell their femininity in the marketplace. Such unnatural and immoral acts failed to give women an equal status. This resulted rather in the creation of innumerable new problems. One of them is pornography, which is not a separate problem in itself, but the inevitable result of unrestricted freedom having given way to licence.
PORNOGRAPHY
Pornography is the representation of erotic behavior, as in books, pictures, or films, intended to cause sexual excitement. Pornographic matter has fallen under legislative prohibition in most countries in the world on at least one of the following assumptions: (1) pornography will tend to deprave or corrupt the morals of youth, or of adults and youth; and, (2) consumption of such matter is a cause of sexual crimes.7
The demand for pornography has become so great that, in western countries, it has developed into a regular industry. In America itself this industry has an annual turnover of $ 8 billion. The problems created by it are of such magnitude that a U.S. government commission has issued a report linking sex crimes with hard-core pornography. The commission, headed by then U.S. Attorney General Mr. Edwin Meese, called for a law enforcement effort of unprecedented scope against the $ 8 billion-a-year pornography industry.8 Another commission set up by the U.S. Justice Department has come to a similar conclusion. This report, entitled Degrading Women, was published in the national press.
In an introduction to its final report, the Attorney General’s commission on pornography urged action against the pornography industry, including more severe penalties for violation of obscenity laws. The report found that exposure to most pornography bears some causal relationship to the level of sexual violence, sexual coercion or unwanted sexual aggression. The commission’s conclusions conflict with those of a 1970 presidential commission that found no link between pornography and violence or other anti-social behavior. The 11-member commission formed by Attorney General Edwin Meese said most pornography in the United States would be classified as “degrading,” particularly to women. “We have reached the conclusion, unanimously and confidently, that the available evidence strongly supports the hypothesis that substantial exposure to sexually violent materials as described here bears a causal relationship to anti-social acts of sexual violence and, for some subgroups, possibly to unlawful acts of sexual violence,” the report said. The commission also concluded that there were ties between the pornography industry and organized crime. “There seems strong evidence that significant portions of the pornography magazine industry are either directly operated or closely controlled by La Cosa Nostra members or very close associates,” the commission said.9
THE CONSEQUENCES OF UNRESTRICTED FREEDOM
Women’s emergence from their homes, the free mixing of the sexes and the pervasiveness of pornography add up to a situation in which sexual excitement is inevitable. The institution of marriage having proved inadequate for the satisfaction of such artificially stimulated and now unbounded sexual urges, free sexual relations have gradually become the order of the day, and in the modern West, there seems to be no limit to the occasions on which sexual liberties may be indulged in. By representing free relations between men and women as being as harmless as shaking hands with one’s friend, books, films, plays, etc., have played a major role in encouraging the acceptance of such behaviour as the norm.
The marriage bond, as a result, has come to be viewed as burdensome, superfluous and outdated. So many young men and women have started to live together without being married that the term “unmarried couple” has now come to be considered just as lawful a term as “married couple.”
Where the divine shari’ah has established a balance between men and women such as renders them complements to each other, “women’s lib” claims that they are duplicates of each other—almost like clones. This ill-judged concept has become tremendously popular in recent years, upsetting the balance which had existed for hundreds of years between men and women. The results, however, have been no gain to humanity, while the harm done is too much even to quantify.
The first and most obvious result of women’s new-found economic independence has been the higher incidence of divorce. Scientific research has proved that women are more emotional than men, and, as such, can take hasty, ill-considered decisions. Before the industrial revolution, having no permanent, independent, economic footing acted as a check to their emotionalism. When, for example, they felt aggrieved at what they considered the negative aspects of married life, the question of how and where they would live if they opted for divorce inevitably acted as a deterrent. But such fears have been swept away in modern times. On this point the Encyclopaedia Britannica says:
Industrialization has made it easier for women to support themselves,
whether they are single, married, divorcees, or widowed. In this connection it is interesting to note that the Great Depression the 1930s stopped the rise in the number of divorces in the United States for a time.10
In some western countries the divorce rates have increased to an alarming degree. In France half the number of marriages end in divorce, while in Canada the divorce rate is about 40 percent. In the U.S. the divorce rate is as high as the marriage rate. Ten percent of American women have gone through the experience of divorce.11
JUVENILE DELINQUENCY
Modern times have seen women coming out of their homes to enter every department of life. But they have not benefitted by being accorded equal status with men in life outside the home. What this new departure has done is leave insoluble problems in its wake, one of them being illegal sexual relationships. For the free mixing of men and women can seldom culminate in any other way.
A sexual relationship which is formed outside the fold of marriage seems initially to be a simple matter, but when a child is born in such a situation, it becomes evident—generally too late—that it is not such a simple matter, and that normally welcome event—the birth of a child—can have the gravest of consequences both for the child and the parents. It is a sad fact that a large number of illegitimate children are born in the West, despite contraceptive devices being in general use. An official report in 1985 revealed that nearly one in five children born in Britain was illegitimate and that nearly one in three had been conceived by unmarried parents. Such illegitimate children frequently begin their lives in ignorance of who their fathers and mothers are. They are looked after in official institutions and then enter society more in the manner of animals than human beings.
The subject of juvenile delinquency has been studied exhaustively. The Encyclopaedia Britannica says that it is among the most baffling social maladies of the 20th century. A world-wide phenomenon, it varies in quality and frequency from country to country.12 The child delinquent is depicted as a nervous, negative creature suffering from psychological abnormalities, which can be traced to their having been deprived of their parents and which sooner or later manifest themselves in criminal activity.13
In a report of Time magazine, it is revealed that in America each year about 300 children kill either their father or mother.14
It is a known fact that the weakest of all newborn creatures is the human child. He needs, more than any living thing, the love, care and guidance of his parents. But the encouragement given by western, civilization to women to do something so unnatural as to leave home and enter into illicit relationships has resulted in children having been deprived of blessings which God had intended to provide for them through their parents. Sometimes they are denied the attention they need because their parents are out at work for the whole day in some office. Sometimes it is because their parents have separated that they are left alone; and sometimes it is because they were born out of wedlock, that the parents do not consider it their responsibility to look after them.
In western countries, where the marriage bond has weakened to a very great extent, and even quite trifling differences can result in separation, divorce has become common, and the resultant broken homes have had the same disastrous effects on children as illegitimacy. It is little wonder that children, who are deprived of the normal tender, loving care of a united family, degenerate into animal-like creatures and frequently develop criminal tendencies. One glaring example is Charles Sobhraj, the internationally notorious criminal. Sobhraj’s Indian father and European mother did marry, but separated soon after his birth, so that he never knew what it was to live in a united home. He was brought up independently without receiving any proper education, and it is not, therefore, surprising that he gradually developed criminal tendencies. Later a life of the most horrifying crime, he is now serving out a lengthy sentence in an Indian jail.
Should not this give pause to the headlong rush into women’s emancipation and all the social instability which ensues?
Notes
1. Encyclopaedia Britannica (1984), vol. 19, p. 909.
2. Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science on Society (1976), p. 17.
3. Encyclopaedia Britannica (1984), vol. 19, p. 909.
4. Bible, I Corinthians, 11:8.
5. J.M. Roberts, The Pelican History of the World (New York, 1984), p. 334.
6. Statesman (New Delhi), April 26, 1986.
7. Encyclopaedia Britannica (1984), vol. VIII, p. 127.
8. The Times of India (New Delhi), July 11, 1986.
9. Ibid., May 23, 1986.
10. Encyclopaedia Britannica (1984), vol. III, p. 586.
11. Plain Truth, May 1987.
12. Encyclopaedia Britannica (1984), vol. II, p. 913
13. Ibid., vol. 5, p. 273.
14. Time, October 19, 1987, p. 60.
