UI – Part 175 – Temptation (II)

What Makes for a Well-Adjusted Man?

Is a man’s struggle in life more than a woman’s?  As the worker, hunter, the outside (of the home) provider, the gatherer, is man under greater pressure than a woman who stays home to educate and also provide a wholesome, loving, caring place for family, and to cook, clean and make ready a comfortable focal point of unity for all sharing the name of the man.  Man and wife, biblically, are to be one (not many), and to become a nurturing force for the Lord. They are to be independent of the parents of either one.  How can that be if man is distracted by other wives and families?  Where is the unity?   Is it the man alone that should be educated, should govern and safeguard the family from oppression?  What if the man by his own actions is an oppressor?  Is he to blame Allah?  Or is he to claim it is by Allah’s directive?  “Allahu Akbar!”  Does man not have an emotional nature, believing and suggesting such is a weakness of women?  Hide the emotions to be strong.  That is a man’s directive to his son.  Is this the intellectual approach to knowing that man can be stronger than a women and thus in control?  Is the hidden emotion justification?  And please note that by ‘hiding’ emotions it says nothing about not having or being ‘emotional.’

On June 20, 2010, Father’s Day Tom Watson took what may be his last walk down the 18^th hole of Pebble Beach, having made the cut at the U.S. Open at age 60.  Tears flowed as he approached the final green, his son carrying his golf bag, the crowd standing and cheering in celebration for his good nature and his accomplishments over many years.  Making what he hoped was his final putt the TV viewers saw a tear drop from his face and fall to the ground.  Such emotion in a man shows his love, shows God’s love incorporated in man, in the image of God, in the nature of man reflecting the feelings we should all have, one towards another.

What makes for a well- adjusted man? Manly pursuits?  A man worth twice that of a woman – is that a factor? Being stronger than a woman, is that a factor?  As head-of-the-family, is that a good thing or bad for a Muslim man?  Is the wife a burden, an impediment to a man’s need for personal outlets?  Sexual gratification – is that a path to a good disposition?  Does a man have a generally ‘sadistic’ nature, recognized by Allah, which needs to be satisfied?  A woman totally obeying the wishes, wants and demands of her husband, is that all for the good of society?  Maybe for the good of an ideal Islamic Society, but not for today’s modern society.  Women serve a man out of love and devotion.  Men honor women out of love and devotion.

What makes for a well-adjusted woman? 

What makes for a well-adjusted woman?  Do children become a women’s albatross, such that only without children, the responsibility of children, can a women seek other outlets such as employment away from home?  Are women not to enjoy sexual gratification?  Or do Muslim men just not understand that women also are sexual beings and not sexual objects? Is a well-adjusted woman the one that just waits for her husband to come home and then demand she has sex with him?  I wonder where Muslim men are on the foreplay scale.   Is the woman to blame for tempting a man?  Even if a women attempts to be seductive, indeed tempting, is it her fault or the man’s for succumbing to her charms?  You know, as I do, it is the man, the one tempted that is the failure.  Blaming the woman is only an excuse.  The Quran allows man to have such an excuse.  This is not God’s decision.  God is good, never evil, never tempting.

From the Bible – Husband and Wife

The Bible says several things, first, “Because of immoralities, each man is to have his own wife, and each wife is to have her own husband.” (1 Cor. 7:2) – not multiple wives or husbands.  The Book goes on to say, “wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord.” (Eph. 5:22) and “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her.” (Eph. 5:25).  “Husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies.  He who loves his own wife loves himself.” (Eph. 5:28)  The Bible reflecting on marriage emphasized, “the two shall become one flesh.”  (Eph. 5:31)  The operative word here is ‘one’, which would not be possible if a man had multiple wives.  What is most telling is the requirement that “each individual is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.” (Eph. 5:33).   The man – husband, is to love the wife.  The woman – wife is to respect the husband.  To gain one’s respect takes hard work, attention to the person, and loving.  It may be harder to gain one’s respect than to love the person.  How many Muslim women truly respect their husbands?  How many Muslim men truly love their wives?

 Sharia Law – Man and Woman

Sharia Law is an excuse for Muslim men to treat women poorly. Sharia Law is an excuse for men to keep women oppressed.  When a rape victim needs another female witness, impossible in any common sense analysis, even if there is DNA evidence, while the male perpetrator alone can claim his innocence, how can this form of abuse, cruelty and crime be stopped.  And then if Islamic families then cast-out such an abused women because she has defiled the family name, even as the victim, what rights could ever be considered equal for a woman.   The system suggested by Sharia is archaic and barbaric towards women.  Honor killings for marrying out of the clan, or out of the religion, or defiling the family name are wrong.  How can this not be murder of the worst kind?  Stories of mothers stabbing their girl children for staying out past curfew, or fathers beheading daughters for running from an arranged marriage, fathers even engaging sons to aide in the killing of a sister for making choices of her home, but in defiance of the orders of the male members, is this sane?   Is this freedom?  This is tyranny.

Does Sharia, or the Quran, suggest, as a directive from Allah, love of a woman by her husband?

When will the 50% of the Islamic world, the women, take their rightful position shoulder-to-shoulder with men as intelligent, capable, loving, caring, productive members of the world society?  Why should they not be educated, literate, free to choose their own destiny, and living in freedom?  Why should they not be able to choose a different religious path if more in concert with their own understanding?

Why are the temptations of Muslim men allowed by the Quran?  It is not the corrected copy of the Bible, but a diversion to allow Muhammad and his band of followers to seek their own path and make their excuses for their selfish acts and need for control, satisfying a sadistic nature, in the name of Allah.  Allah’s nature is not the same as the nature of the God I know.

Continued…………(Next week)…………….