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Teenager Siti Maryam Mahmod married 23-year-old Abdul Manan Othman, a family friend in July. They were one of 250 couples at the 1Malaysia mass wedding held at the Federal Territory mosque on Saturday. She is 14 years old. He is 23 years old.
under the law, currently Muslim girls below the age of 16 can marry with the Syariah Court’s consent while non-Muslim girls between 16 and 18 years old can marry with the authorisation of the Mentri Besar or Chief Minister.
As far as i’m concerned, she is still a child. Children below 16 years are still in need of guidance, protection and the chance to form their own character.
I am disappointed with the religious authorities for allowing this to happen. What would a 14 year old child understand about what it takes to make a marriage tick at that age? the girl should be allowed to focus on her studies, to find out about herself better. under the law even, a person below the age of 18 is assumed not to possess the level of maturity needed to make proper informed choices on their own hence their guardians are given the powers to do so on their behalf.
What were the parents thinking when they allowed it? they are depriving their child of not only learning and living her teenage years but also subjecting their child to a life meant for someone who is ready to lead a life filled with numerous responsibilities. is she ready? what are the yardsticks used?
they may argue that in Islam, as long as you have reached puberty, you may get married and used the example of the Prophet Muhammad who got married to Aisyah when she was a child. but they have missed the point. The Prophet did indeed married her when she was 12 BUT the marriage was only carried out and solemnized when she was 18. When she was able to be educated and form her own character. he was only promised her. even then when she turned 18, she had the choice to decide whether she wants to go to the Prophet. if only people choose to read more. they would understand that she made an informed choice to do so.
i still feel that the syariah court should maintain at least 18 years old as a minimum. let the girl have her basic education and formative years to enable her to make a proper informed choice later on.
a child’s future?
mood: poignant thoughts running wild.
song: a place to hide – white lies
a friend of mine i met at the mosque after terawih prayers yesterday who is now married with 3 kids told me something that lingers in my head until now. what strikes me that it is the same thing my dad, my uncles and a number of my married friends said.
i asked him, how does he knows whether he’s making the right choice at that point in time to get married to his then gf-now wife. he told me it’s when that girl tells that you are the last sight she wants to see before she sleeps and the first when she awakes. she tells you that when looks are gone with youth, that you would still be the person she can talk to about anything under sun.
now it makes me wonder, when will that time come for me to hear that?
recently i have been receiving a lot of calls from friends asking legal advice and/or recourse for their friends or relatives suffering at the hands of their husbands ( a domestic violence victim ) / abandoned by their husbands whilst they are pregnant / other miscellaneous cases related to it.
since i’m not a practising lawyer what more a family dispute lawyer or even took the elective courses for it; the best i could help is refer them to centres or materials that could assist them to find the proper recourse to be taken. Ergo, i’m putting it here for the benefit of those of you interested:
1. Taken from the Women’s Aid Organisation website
Women’s Aid Organisation: 03 – 7956 3488 (3 lines)
WAO Sexual Assault helpline: 03 – 7960 3030
Women’s Centre for Change, Penang: 04 – 228 0342
All Women Action Society of Malaysia: 03 – 7877 0224
TELEDERA: 1 – 800 – 883040
Befrienders: 03 – 7956 8144
2. Taken from Sisters In Islam website:
write an email to telenisa@sistersinislam.org.my
write a letter and mail it to this address –
No. 7, Jalan 6/10,
46000 Petaling Jaya,
Selangor, Malaysia.
fax to: 03-7785 8737 / call at: 03-7784 3733 (Talian TeleNisa)
*one-on-one counselling (by appointment only) for legal advice*
3. The Malaysian Bar Council Legal Aid Centre
| Tingkat 6, Wisma Kraftangan Tingkat 9, Jalan Tun Perak 50050 Kuala Lumpur |
Tel Fax |
: 03-26913005 / 26932072 : 03-26930527 : lacklb@klbar.org.my |
KLue has again been extra helpful. they have publish their very own Buka Puasa Guide telling you what to eat and where you can get it.
Unfortunately for people like me who could only go back at 5.30 and is far from those places listed down, i could only feel envy.
the rape cases that has taken the headlines recently is appalling. children as young as 8 are taken advantage by men with the minds of animals.
even animals are protective of the young. people say that the death penalty is too extreme of a measure as they did not take away the life of another hence have yet to discount theirs. A highly valued criminal lawyer, Karpal Singh amongst others vouch for it. The way i see it, the only reason why death penalty would be imposed is for closure to be given to the family and also because the society feels that cases such as these should not be repeated. but this is a flawed logic as those kids (okay, little girls) will grow up tainted by that incident which strips them of their dignity and the trauma could not be denied.
imprisonment is said to be too lenient. majority of rapists and sex offenders are also repeated offenders. flogging while they are in prison does not solve it too.
the only other resolution that we have yet to explore is chemical castration. well, they behave like animals thus they might as well be treated as such. no, it doesn’t mean chopping-off of their genitalia, but merely making the unable to have an erection. the chemical injected will merely make their member ‘soft’, almost dysfunctional. yes, they can still piss through it. it addresses the whole ‘a criminal also have a right to live’ issue and they could never repeat the crime. scar them for life you say? well, they did not think of the harm they inflict upon those poor little girls now did they? the physical scarring and the mental anguish.
so yeah, let’s chemically castrate them instead. more can be read here. well… i may have exaggerated but the idea of castrating them like animals is still a valid option to be taken. bleargh.
My friend is starting her own bakery business from her house. Go and take a look at some of her goodies here.
been attending a lot of weddings already this year. it kinda feels awkward nowdays coming by yourself. especially when others come with their halves to draw up their own plans/ be inspired/ annoy you over-and-over with the same questions.
for the guys, they must’ve cringed at the prospect of a lavish wedding especially when they bring their partners. the women will get glittery-eyed an would want something like that too i.e. a “memorable” wedding. then again, if your parents are paying for it, it wouldn’t be problem. but for people like me where you have to fork out your own money, of course you cringed at the prospect of taking out a loan or mortgage your house just to get married. you’d be broke even before your life gets started.
my family has this policy where if a guy wants to get married, he would have to fork out his own money. the logic? so that he would appreciate it better.
getting married now seems to be an expensive affair. one of the indicators of that is the higher number of divorce cases where the wife would say that the husband promises so much before the wedding, at the wedding but not after. haven’t they heard of bills to pay?
especially in a patriarchal asian society where the man is expected to feed his family, put the food on the table and sustain the family, the pressure is on him. whatever he earns belongs to his family or particularly his wife’s. whatever the wife earns, belongs to the wife and not the husband’s so she has a choice whether or not to help out.
getting back to how marriage is an expensive affair, you have to calculate the hall rental, the food-buffet or serving, the cake, the pelamin, the costume – full suit baju melayu / kebaya, the wang hantaran (dowry), the music, the invitation cards, the postage of the cards, the wedding gifts (part of the dowry), the down-payment for a house / apartment, etc.
i have made my calculation and basically i would need RM30,000.00 to ensure that whoever i would marry get to enjoy the one day of her life or to ensure i would not be accused of being a skint-flint or even to consider getting married in the first place. how is that not depressing with me earning a very, very modest paycheck being a civil servant plus the annual increase of inflation by 5% (or more) and also the annual increase of the standard of living by 15%.
i need a miracle. or a new job.
no, he isn’t dead. Carlos Dengler a.k.a. Carlos D has left Interpol. for a self-confessed fan, i am slow. i blame it on traveling and work. lol.
his trademark style marked with strident staccato bursts, a clean tone brought about by his Fender Jazz Bass, and octave jumps, almost in a disco-like fashion will be missed. wonder who will replace him as their bassist.
the good news is Interpol is coming out with their fourth album.
you never heard of interpol? doink. i’ll leave you with this:
much has been spoken about an elected member of parliament being sentenced to a month’s jail for his failure to seek the Syariah Court’s permission as stipulated under the provisions of the Islamic Family Law Act (IFLA) and enactments (which had been passed by Parliament and the state legislatures) before he engaged in a polygamous marriage.
a lot of women are happy that someone has been made an example of. as a Muslim man, i am happy as well as there have been a lot of people who has abused this QUALIFIED PRIVILEGE and cause undue hardship upon their present wives and children. Yes, i intentionally highlighted the word ‘qualified privilege’ as a lot of man do not understand the huge responsibility that a polygamous marriage brings upon them but merely to satisfy their lust which is not the primary reason why a person should be married in the first place.
Surah al-Nisa 4: 3 provides that: “If you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly with the orphans, marry women of your choice, two or three or four, but if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly (with them) then only one … that will be more suitable to prevent you from doing injustice.”
The immediate occasion of the promulgation of Surah al-Nisa’ (4: 3) was after the battle of Uhud, when the Muslim community was left with many orphans and widows. Some jurists have commented that at that point in time, as the Muslim community was the minority and the lack of men to take care of the women to a certain extent left the women vulnerable, men are allowed to marry more than 1 to enable them to take care of the widowers and their children.
The Prophet (SAW) himself was monogamous throughout the lifetime of his first wife; Khadijah and only after her death married others who were widowers of war or divorced for political or tribal reasons with the exception of Aishah. The Prophet himself had mentioned that being married to more than 1 was a very big responsibility and a man would have to be just to the his other wives and children.
But the problem with most Muslim men is the lack of understanding of the word “justice”. it is not merely being fair in terms of rotating on whose bed you sleep at nights but also fairness in terms of providing emotional, financial, time, and physical support amongst other things. If one were to read properly the verse, the Qur’an does not mention the sexual nature of a marriage but to ensure social justice in protecting the women and the orphans at a time where women who was not married was open to all kinds of social and tribal abuse.
what one needs to understand is that to enable a transition from a society that practises polygamy at that point in time, the Qur’an did not drastically alter the practise by forbidding it but merely impose a condition that is almost impossible to fulfill. a lot of people could scream that they can be ‘just’ but to carry out ‘justice’ or fairness is something utopian to an average man.
the condition imposed under IFLA is to ensure that the wife is not forced to be in a ‘forced polygamy’. The first wife deserves a right to say whether or not her husband should be able to get married to another woman. If the wife disagrees with the husband’s decision, she then would be able seek divorce or attain compensation of the mental harm inflicted upon her by the husband. after all, the fact that the husband chooses to marry another implies that there are faults on her side which he feels does not deserve a thorough discussion. no women should be forced to endure a polygamous marriage.
my dad discussed with me this matter before and he told me the question that one should ponder before he even thinks about getting married to another is if having 1 wife is already a headache (the courtship/ balancing family vs. work/feeding your family) then why do you want to add to that headache?
that’s why i emphasized it as a qualified privilege. the conditions imposed on it implies that it is not a right to begin with, the stringent conditions makes it hard to fulfill. i still believe that the one month’s imprisonment and 1k fine is too little. a much more stricter enforcement should be made. For any average reasonable Muslim man, trying to be just and fair to a certain extent is a hopeful dream.
I remember this Indonesian movie called ‘Berbagi Suami’ where the problems a woman faced in a polygamous marriage was highlighted. People should go watch it. the case of neglected and/or abused wife and children of a polygamous marriage is nothing new.
I have a lot of sisters and female cousins. so before i do anything to a woman, i have to think about there’s a question that i have to answer ; “what if someone does this to any of my sisters or cousins? would i be okay with it?”
i don’t think so. one would be enough. whenever that may be.
he loves his karipap sardin 