The Declining Sanctity of Marriage in Pakistani Society

All around, I see marriages breaking up & a general sense of unhappiness in those marriages which do manage to survive, among many old and known reasons some new ones present themselves.

One of the reasons is accessibility, accessibility via technology be it internet or mobile phones or any other means of modern communication & its relative concealed nature has made the prospect of promiscuous behavior within reach.

But technology is just a means, what really needs to be addressed is what social and emotional tendencies are behind such behavior. In pakistani society the biggest change that has accrued in the last 20 years or so is the so called opening up of the media reaching into our living rooms.

With this influx and saturation of media and the desire to get higher revenues the media has silently abandoned any effort to educate or uphold any semblance of moral decency. What this in turn is preaching is an invitation to decadence and glamorizing wanton behavior to a point where the lines of right and wrong have been blurred generating a sciolistic materialistic mindset.

When the goals of an individual become materialistic and he forgets his true purpose of existence, then any kind of behavior which fullfils his inner desires becomes an option. What he forgets is that there is a difference between what one needs and what he desires.

We as a society have systems of education, the most basic education one gets is not from schools, its the cognition of whats right and wrong and comes from parents. It is the duty of the parents to instill a clear cut recognition in their children and give them moral values. Which is impossible to give if they themselves become immorale.

The most common word we hear is 'friendship'. What is a friend? someone who knowingly pushes you towards fire or saves you from it. Its easy to have an argument with a spouse or have ones emotional needs not meet and find these so called 'friends' who are 'there' for you but by doing that one stabs at the very foundation of marriage and violates the very core values of being faithful to ones spouse.

The problem with us is that we regard Ahadith and Islamic doctrine as something to be put on the shelf and actually dont adhere to them, there are plenty of Ahadith that tell us to refrain from certain types of behavior. The essence of Islam is that to solve a problem it deals with the very root of the issue itself and presents deceptively simple answers on the surface, but if we delve deep and think, we see the genius of these solutions.

For example not letting one in the house without the husbands permission or prohibition for women to travel with out 'Mahram' or simply prohibition of meeting a woman alone. Islam recognizes the core reasons and triggers for unacceptable behavior and gives solutions to curb the problem at the root.

Most problems in marriages arise when the spouses fail to realize each others needs, dont have a regard or knowledge of each others rights or simply fail to realize that marriage is not just a promise to each other but a promise to Allah as well and they are bound by the 'Hadood' boundaries set for them by Allah. Staying within these boundaries ensures a solid foundation on which the building of marriage can withstand any storm.

All of the above problems have solutions and they are in The Quran and the Ahadith and we know about them already but unfortunately we read the words but we dont apply them in our lives.  For a fruitful contented relationship the only way is to adhere to the core values given to us by the sharia and not just blindly follow, we need to delve deep and really understand the reasons behind them.

May Allah enable us to do us.