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Family pressure to get married

Q:

Assalam-o-alaikum,

I am a 27 year old female who lives in US. I wanted to marry a guy and he was serious to do nikah with me as well. We were seeing eachother for 4 years and finally when we graduated, I had his parents come over to my house for proposal. However, when they came, they did not talk about marriage at all. After they left, I found out that they liked me but not my family. It has been 2.5 years since then and I went into deep depression and wanted to heal but my family started pressuring me to get married since day 1.

I couldn’t get over the grief and it was hard for me to fight the pressure at the same time. I lost focus at work and started forgetting things in my day to day life. The problem is, I lost all the desire to get married. I am a practicing muslim now and got closer to God. I don’t want to get married or have someone in my life because i fear that i may not be able to fulfill the duties of marriage and it all feels forced to me. My family pressure has increased to the point where my parents stopped talking to me until I say yes to get married. Somehow I managed and told them that i will be living with my sister for a while to make myself mentally better. My parents are talking to me now and I have felt better staying at my sisters house however, now my sister also started to pressurize me to get married because she feels bad for parents and want me to sacrifice and If i don’t do that, then I am selfish.

I am an independent woman and can live on my own. I avoided living separate because in my culture, women do not live alone etc. However now I really want to end this suffering. It has been 2.5 years since dealing with this pain and torture and blackmailing.

Sometimes I feel like I should just say yes to marriage and let them be happy but I know deep inside I will not be happy if I get into marriage and i will make someone else’s life miserable which I dont want. I really need help and ask you what should I do in this situation.

JazakAllah

A:

Salam Alaykum Va Rahmatullah The decision of every human being is based on the judgment one makes, for that I believe you think marriage is not suitable for you. As a Talabe who studied the ahadith for more than 15 years I think your judgment is based on wrong premises. First you must know the benefits of marriage are not limited to sexual satisfactions. Marriage is a good boost for personal development. It gives one reasons and motive to get better in moral, religious, financial and social aspects. Imam Sadiq(A.S) told a girl who has decided to not get married, if there was a benefit for being single (in the eyes of Allah) Fatima Al-Zahra would not get married. Developing in the Erfan levels is faster for married people and even some levels of Erfan is only for married people. Usually the decision for avoiding marriage is because of bad experiences people see in the life of their parents or someone they love(siblings, friends etc.). Prior failing marriage also can cause the same feeling. It is necessary for you to know your life is completely different from them and you are the master of your destiny. If you failed in your first marriage it doesn’t mean you would get the same result in your next marriage. Secondly it is because one may think heshe is not interesting in looks or personality , and so or one has a bad memory. Remember everybody is different from one another and someone who is not interesting for one, can be the love of life for another. Find the love of your life and start your journey. Be brave! Some of Ulama said the verse وَمِنْ آيَاتِهِ أَنْ خَلَقَ لَكُمْ مِنْ أَنْفُسِكُمْ أَزْوَاجًا means everybody has a couple who can find and have good life with himher. Thirdly one is forced to get married to someone heshe doesn’t want. In this case you must talk to parents and you should face and solve the problem, not avoiding it completely. I know there are a lot more than these three reasons for avoiding marriage but these three are the most common ones. If you can get in touch with an Alim who knows about personal and consulting. At the end I have to say successful marriage needs a lot of efforts and need learning but it worth the effort. Please before reading the last part consider my suggestions as it is the better way to chose About your last question, no it is not Gunah to avoid marriage if you don’t commit marriage related Gunah. Also I have to mention maybe for now you can control yourself but later when you change your mind there are no cases for marriage. So you have to consider the future. Best regards! Sayid Madani.

With thanks and regards

Ask An Alim Team