Empowerment of women – 2

Prof. Rahmat Karim Baig
As a result of the feminist movement in Europe women were given certain rights such as better wages, maternity leave, right to cast vote in election, right to live separately from their parents, freedom of speech etc. but this liberty also made them easy victim to greedy males such as: after the boyfriend stage the boy left and the burden of raising the kid or kids fell on the shoulders of the mother.

She had to do work in private or public sector and bear all the expenses of her single parent family. She failed to make both ends meet. The education of the kids suffered. The ex boy friend could not be sued for escaping from the scene nor was held responsible to pay for the living/educational costs of the kids.

This led to a great imbalance in the social sector and caused psychological disorders and instead of bringing egalitarianism it widened the disparity in the society.
The street children, an outcome of this type of independence, became a burden for the government as well as the society. More rules had to be introduced to cope with the situation. It also carried them to drug addiction as in the absence of care of parents or family system the street children became vulnerable and were drafted into smuggling by mafias.

The scenario did not stop there but moved towards other crimes including murders. Smuggling of children also emerged on the scene with dirty crimes such as human trafficking.

At each next step new rules were introduced but new complications cropped up and each situation begot unimagined issues. Different countries had their own approach to solve that issue.
The empowerment idea of the champions of Feminism got them into new arenas. Some Feminists were sorry for the steps taken in that direction. The Feminists also began to malign Islam for its strict discipline regarding status and role of women in the society.

Polygamy was under criticism and its positive aspects were ignored. In an Islamic Society a woman has got certain duties as well as certain rights and they go cheek by jowl and they are not unbridled creatures. In this Faith a woman when she gets married becomes free of the worries of bread winning.

The husband is bound to give her food, a house, clothing and all other needful articles. She does not need job. She gets Mahar from her husband beside the items mentioned above. Also she is free from breast feeding the baby if she likes so and it is the headache of the father to hire a foster mother for the baby.

She can live in her own room and in case of polygamy each wife has the right to have her own living room. In Islam all the burden of upkeep of his wife falls on the husband but if a man is financially not well off then he has been advised not to have a second wife. It is a misconception in the West that in Islam it is mandatory to have four wives. It is a misconception and baseless. It has allowed up to four if a rich man affords the expenses as well as efficient to keep balance, fairness and justice in the rights of his wives.
This was allowed for certain social reasons such as when women outnumber men due to deaths in wars and the widows were to be looked after so a rich man could marry up to four.
It is a common news in the media that in many countries, even today, the number of women is higher than men so instead of brothel it would be a better option to be a legal wife of a man and save her chastity from public condemnation.

In this case she gets many rights and thus gets empowered in the inheritance of her father, her brother, her husband, her son and unlike Hinduism she is not condemned to widowhood till her death or be burnt alive with the dead body of her husband called Sutti.