“He for the field and she for the home.”
(Lord Tennyson)
Man and woman are two wheels of cart of life. They complement and supplement the role of each other. They have been blessed with different secondary mental qualities. Each has been assigned his/her own sphere in life.
The masculine qualities are strength, daring stoutness, intelligence, gallantry, heroism, chivalry, fortitude, endurance, prudence, etc. The feminine qualities are tenderness, delicacy, meekness, kindness, coyness, domesticity, patience, affection, pity, sympathy and so on. Physically and psychologically both man and women are on different levels. Accordingly, the roles of the two in life and society, are clearly marked. They are summed up by the above-quoted line of the great poet.
In Islam both man and women have equal rights, but their spheres of life are clearly defined. According to the verses of the Holy Quran man is Head of the family.
It is binding and obligatory on him to earn the living and support the family-the wife and children. Sons and daughters are gifts of God. For the Holy Prophets daughters were blessings of God. Man has been accorded a higher place than to the woman in the affairs of life.
He has to run the government, fight battles and wars, make treaties, protect women, children and the weak, tilt the fields, run the business and earn the bread with honest means. She has to rear and bring up the children, run the home, protect and preserve the honor and property of her husband, bring him comfort and play the role of a mother and nurse to the sick and the sufferers. She has rightly been called the tender vessel.[the_ad id=”17141″]
As we see, now the women are constantly vying with men and assailing the masculine fields. They have already discarded the veil (purdah) as ordained in Sura Noor in the Holy Quran J. Swift in the last part of his famous book ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ says: let the Kingdom of the world pass into the Lands of aminals because man has become very corrupt, base and depraved.
Some feminists wish it to pass into the hands of women. They think if women rule the world, there will no war, no bloodshed, no massacre of Human Rights. Peace shall prevail in the world. It is a mistaken idea. It will be like changing the direction of the social stream towards a desert. It would be a topsy turvy world (Ulti Ganga). It will mean clear interference into the order of things assigned by God. If women were to rule the world, men would be confined to home, run the house, cook the food and rear up the children. The daughter of Eve will have to run the government, play politics, fight wars, run the factories and industries. It would be not only undesirable but also most un-natural, rather impossible. Fathers can not become mothers and vice versa. Otherwise, all works would be held up.
It is, indeed, an honor to be a woman. The modern ‘women’ have won the honors, but they have lost their honor – the essence of women-hood.
