Jeremy, I have this problem when speaking to some people about Islam. They already are assuming the worst, and it becomes my job to show them how Islam is better than what they have thought.
Well, I’d like to think that’s not me to begin with, but maybe it is with regard to this particular issue. I don’t know. Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions anyway.
The assumption here is, I guess, that a woman actually isn’t allowed to say “no.” That’s what you’ve said. And forgive me if I’ve let you believe that–but it’s not true. The woman can of course say no. She shouldn’t, however, without a good reason. Saying she shouldn’t doesn’t mean she’s forbidden from it, ok?
OK.
If you back to the original news story at the start of the thread, the cleric says that even if the woman is busy doing something else, she is to drop whatever she is doing in order to engage in intercourse with her husband because he wants it. So presumably "I’m busy is not in the category of “good reasons”. What IS considered a good reason (and why) ought to go a long way to resolving my apparent misunderstandings of the true Islamic position.
But there are consequences of it–if she angers her husband by saying no, by refusing him without any good reason, then there a hadith that the angels will curse her.
So angels apparently decide or are informed as to what is a “good” reason? Do they then communicate their decision to the husband or what? I’m confused as to how/why angels are involved in this.
Because in essence while she is asserting what you call the right to say no, she is also denying her husband his marital rights. So it is something to be taken very seriously, for the woman to understand that. And since it’s usually men who are talking to men about this issue (women wouldn’t be so public about it), you don’t get that complete picture I guess.
I see. That bit makes sense in a way. Both must have their rights respected. I think most of what I am objecting to is not that the husband might tell his wife “I think it is part of the health of our marriage that you are responsive to me physically and I to you; if you are not, it worries me, and I feel you do not respect me or our marriage.” This I think would be a very respectful way and reasonable way to approach the issue. What I am objecting to is this idea that the wife should simply submit to her husband physically even if she really doesn’t want to, because it is his right within the marriage to have sex whenever he wants. If that is the case (and now I’m going to try to resume using lots of qualifiers, so that you don’t get the idea that I think my assumptions about Islam are reality; I don’t), then how can either husband or wife be secure in the state of their relationship? I think we can all either recall or imagine stories from friends, relatives, or even our own lives when we stopped feeling emotionally connected to our husband/wife/fiancee and our relationships suffered as a result. This is the problem I have with the idea of “rights” in the way that you have defined them (I’m thinking of our “right/obligation to love” conversation from a while ago, if you remember that) being recognized over the desires of either party. It may be my right to physical intimacy with my wife, but if she always obliges me even though she doesn’t want to, I don’t think it is too crazy for both of us to start resenting one another for this (me for her begrudging sort of attitude; she for my callousness).
I actually take that offensively. The rights to intimacy are equal. The wife has just as much a right to intimacy with her husband as he has! This is another assumption, I suppose, that the rights are not equal, that the man is not also held accountable to his wife. But as I said, both husband and wife are entitled to intimacy with their spouse, and to not be refused without a good reason.
I apologize for having offended you, but I must maintain that it is very difficult for me to see the equality of the situation here. Perhaps if there had been an example of a talk given to Muslimahs about their rights over their husband that included rights to hit them if they are disobedient in this area, I might feel differently (though I recognize why I will never see such an example, even if it does exist). It seems like in practice, with man’s libido being as it is, there can be very little doubt as to who will be most often called upon to submit to marital relations even when they don’t want to.
One thing strikes me as odd, and maybe this is a dumb question, but I’ll ask it anyway because I’m curious: Why can rights not be framed in a two-way manner? Meaning, why can it not be both the husband’s and the wife’s right to ask for or refuse sex as they see fit? Would that not work because the husband’s desire for sex is probably more “constant” (for lack of a better way to phrase it) than the wife’s, so his desires would go unfulfilled more often than hers?
If that is the case (and, without being crude, imperical evidence from both being a man and having many male friends would suggest that it is), is this not implicit recognition that the man’s “rights” do have primacy over those of the wife simply because he wants sex more often than she does?
Why is sex on request a right, but celibacy on request is not?
