“And of His signs is that He created for you from yourselves mates that you may find tranquility in them; and He placed between you affection and mercy. Indeed in that are signs for a people who give thought. (30:21)”
The above verse from the Quran is not only Allah’s way of telling us the importance of Muslim Marriage, but also explains the way that 2 people coming together in marriage should lead their lives. Love, affection and mercy are all positive attributes that Allah has asked us to portray in our married lives. But there are also many negative and unhealthy attributes that Allah has asked us to stay away from. One of those attributes is jealousy and competition between spouses.
When we are ready to get married we often look for spouses who are on the same wavelength as us. This generally means that their ages are more or less the same, their education level matches theirs and their family values seem to be as close as possible to their own family value system. Research shows that when such commonalities lie between spouses in marriage, there is a greater chance of having feelings of jealousy and competition among them. These are the feelings that need to be fought.
Allah has asked every man to take care of their wives “for He has given the one more strength than the other”. At the same time Allah has also asked the believing wives to love and respect their husbands and stand by them. The roles of both the husband and the wife are defined in Islam. Why then does the question of competition come up? It is because we have not yet realized our roles in accordance with Islam.
We must realize that marriage is a two-way street. If your husband has a successful career and you don’t it is not a cause for jealousy and should not lead to sourness in relationship. Infact it should lead to pride for the wife that her husband has accomplished so much, so much that would enable him to support her and his family, which indeed is what Allah prescribed him to do in the first place! If the children run to their mother more often than to the father for help, love or support, it should not be a cause of competition for the father of “who does or child love more, you or me?”. He should be proud that Allah enabled her to give birth to the child through her body and raised her status to a mother and for that he will get the sawaab too.
In short, if one of the spouses achieves more than the other, you should not be insecure or feel unaccomplished. You should stand by your spouse and remember that their accomplishment is eventually YOUR accomplishment. Their success is YOUR success. If every Muslim couple thought this way in the light of the teachings of the Quran and the Hadith, there would be no negativity and ill-feelings in marriages.
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