"There is an acute lack of suitable matches for the girls as they are well-educated," says Kazi, who works as a matchmaker voluntarily from home.
As more Muslim parents educate their daughters while most boys either drop out to join the family business or take up jobs, the marriage prospects of Muslim girls is becoming severely limited. There are not many suitable boys available and many highly qualified girls have to willy-nilly settle for less educated boys as grooms. As they become older because of continued education, the girls' chances of getting suitable matches diminish. Kazi shows the photograph of a 32-year-old girl who is a postgraduate in information technology and employed with a firm. "Boys want girls at least four years younger to them. I am finding it difficult to find a boy for this 32-year-old girl, who is highly qualified and also good looking," says Kazi.
The crisis compelled Rizwana Junaid, in charge of the women's wing at Islam Gymkhana, Marine Lines, last year to begin Saath Saath, an initiative through which she facilitates meetings between parents desperately looking for "good rishtas" (matches). Initially, she had restricted the platform only for Memon families, but from this year, she has begun admitting applicants from different regions; the last meet was on March 23.
Junaid, who does matchmaking voluntarily, says she comes across people with "strange" and "weird" choices. "There was an MBBS doctor boy and I offered him the choice of a girl who was also an MBBS, but he said he didn't want to marry a girl who had studied beyond the 12th standard. He said he wanted a housewife, not a competitor."
'Younger in age' is just one of several "qualifications" Muslim boys want in girls. The others are: she should be fair, beautiful and tall, and obedient to their husbands and in-laws. Nayyer Lateef, a Versova-based professional matchmaker, recently received a request from a boy employed at a private company. "The girl must be fair, the boy demanded," says Lateef. "The boy himself was dark-skinned and yet he wanted a gori (fair) girl as wife. I am glad that the girls who I showed his profile rejected it saying they too wanted fair faces."
Muslim girls are finding it difficult to get suitable boys also because of increasing sectarian divide. While Deobandis are a bit flexible, Sunnis, matchmakers say, almost strictly say no to Deobandis, Wahabis and Tablighis. "Sunni parents say their daughters would be stopped from visiting dargahs if they were to marry them off to Deobandi or Tablighi families. This scuttles the chances of many girls of getting good matches," says Saeeda Khan, a school teacher who also works as a matchmaker voluntarily.
Social activist Saeed Khan says that in the last decade or so, regional divide among Muslims has decreased while sectarian divide has widened. "Now Memons and Konkanis are ready to marry their children off into families of UPwallas and Biharis, but Sunnis don't forge marital bonds with Wahabis and Deobandis," says Khan. "In such a situation, how do you expect Muslim girls to get good choices?"
Indeed, a bleak scenario.
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