She is too young to get divorced

Since 2012-12-08

How difficult the divorce of the new bride whose hands are still dyed in henna is! What is more difficult is her return to her family without using most of her furniture and kitchenware which burdened her father with money and her mother with tiredness and efforts.

 

By Imân Al-Quddûsy
 
When the subject of divorce is opened, it is not easy to end the discussion, particularly after the statistics have confirmed the unprecedented increase of the rates of divorce. The rates recorded 250 divorce cases daily, more than half of them are among the newly-married couples. How difficult the divorce of the new bride whose hands are still dyed in henna is! What is more difficult is her return to her family without using most of her furniture and kitchenware which burdened her father with money and her mother with tiredness and efforts. What will be the suitable reaction when someone comes to congratulate the bride after his return from a short journey? What if he is bringing a suitable gift and his wife begins the visit by showing courtesy towards the family through trilling? No one can stop here except by saying, “Stop this nonsense, the girl has been divorced.”
 
Actually, the girl is still too young for divorce or even perhaps for marriage. Do we start to define who is the responsible party, is it the heedless and selfish bridegroom or is it the inexperienced and unprepared bride? This is a completely wrong question and out of context. This is because it means putting more woods to the fire of disunion which we wish to extinguish. No one searches for unhappiness and no one of the two partners of marriage intends to marry in order to fail, lose, and fall into the trap of divorce.
 
Maybe we should think where we have gone wrong in upbringing our children.
 
We will easily find that pampering children and not accustoming them to hold the responsibility are the reasons. The reason is the young man whose family paid all the expenses of his marriage in order to be pleased with him. Another reason is the girl who always obtains whatever she wants and is proud that she does not know how to boil an egg. When they get married, the rapid divorce will be a logical consequence. This is because the two children quarrel with each other and fail to adapt to the new situation. Pampering is not a type of love; rather, it is a marginalization of the personalities of the boy and the girl. This makes them ineffective persons who are depending on the excess of others. In addition, they do not value what they own; they can handle neither successful negotiation nor the sense of giving.
 
Few years, at least, before marriage, we should remedy this defect in the personality of our children. The main cause of this defect is the tendency towards their complete devotion to education. This prolongs the period of childhood and delays maturity. There should be a stage of holding responsibility before marriage. The young man should hold responsibility at work and should hold some of the responsibilities of the family. On the other hand, the girl should take responsibility towards the house, the kitchen, and dealing with the father, brother, neighbors, and visitors in lieu of her mother.
 
The following matter is the successful selection and the harmony between the two spouses to be, which represent the greatest problem for those who want to marry of both sexes. All the old social backgrounds are collapsed; they are replaced by isolation and self-withdrawal. This makes the families confused about the state of their sons when they grow up, and how will they marry?
 
They usually say, “We do not know any suitable one and no one knows us.” However, the interrelations in the rural, and middle ranked areas and the regular visits between acquaintances and neighbors in Cairo and big cities used to totally solve this problem. This kind of community was normal as it represented protection, education, guidance, and example to children. In addition, it provides an excellent way to choose a suitable bride for the young man.
 
Recently, in spite of the overspread of the state of religiousness and its aspects, no one talks about kinship, communication with the relatives of the family, and the right of neighbors. No one cares about them. Rather, the opposite is what happens, as everyone is proud to say, “I am confined, I am limited in my relationships to others and I do not know any one, my wife neither visits nor be visited, and my children only go to school and come back to the house). This is not straightness; rather, it is introversion and a state of refusal and discord with people. One day you may need those people, at least for marriage.
 
We have the solution for a lot of the problems of the youth. They have become living in a state of social atrophy and cultural poverty. When our children grow up, they do not find a strong social structure that protects, guides, and gives them multiple examples of personalities. Moreover, they cannot find the example that makes them play the different roles which will strengthen their personalities, that will enable them to shift them from the stage of childhood to adulthood, and provide them with the necessary experience in order to be successful, after that, in forming a family.
 
Life is not only a matter of education, even if it is effective or fruitful. Instead, it is a continuous social training. It is relations between generations; the elder ones pass their experience and knowledge to the younger. The best thing that we can present to our children is strong and good bonds with relatives, neighbors, and friends. Therefore, the girl grows up to learn how to cook from her maternal aunt and to learn fine arts from her paternal one. In addition, she learns reading and communication skills from her cousin, takes care of her grandmother, and helps the young daughter of her neighbor in her study, and so on. As for the boy, he is a young man who attends the meetings of men, plays their roles and they depend on him in everything.
 
At that time, marriage will be completed easily within this rich social framework, and according to the previous association and intimacy. The marriage will succeed because it is held between a true man who absorbed manhood and are formed by it, and a young woman who is skilled as she knows how to win the heart of her man. That woman knows how to build her family, and educate her children. At this time, teenagers will not search for something away from the family, and thus they will not go astray. Moreover, girls will not respond to the first sweet words that will turn their empty heads. In addition, cases of marriage which start with disagreements about who will manage the (remote control) and ends with tangling with hands and pulling hair will not fail. Such quarrels end up with the intervention of the families in order to defend their children. Then, the matter will end at the office of the marriage official with a certificate of divorce. This certificate is greater than being borne by those young couples.
 
 
Imân Al-Quddûsy
Newspaper of Al-Masriyûn (The Egyptians)