| Answer: The concept of women being
obedient to men and showing submission to them must be understood in the proper
perspective. A family by analogy is similar to a state. All citizens of a state
are expected to abide by the rules and regulations of the country they live in.
They are expected to adopt an attitude of adjustment and harmony with the
country. This, of course, does not mean that they cannot differ with its
policies. They have the inalienable democratic right to differ and present their
differences in a befitting manner. This submission is actually an essential
requirement for discipline and order without which anarchy may result.
Similarly, in the case of a family set
up, it is essential that the person who is its head be shown obedience. In other
words, submission to authority is not specific to the gender of the authority.
Whoever is the authority, must be submitted to. Gender does not dictate
submissiveness -- it is authority which does. It is common knowledge that in
different sphere of activities people have different abilities and justice
entails that a person be made responsible according to his or her abilities and
given authority on that basis. We have been informed by divine revelation that
it is the husband who is more suitable to be the head of the family. Owing to
this relative superiority, women are directed to submit to men not because men
are superior human beings, but because in this particular case it is the men who
have been vested with authority in accordance with the following verse:
Men are the guardians of women
because Allah has given one superiority over the other and because they [--- men
---] support them from their means. (4:34)
If women had been more suitable for the task of heading a
family, men would have been directed to adopt this attitude of adjustment. This
I think has nothing to do with "gender injustice". |