Woman Between Islam and Western Society
2. Woman in Society
~ 96 ~
mixing of the sexes and the pervasiveness of
pornography add up to a situation in which sexual
excitement is inevitable. The institution of marriage
having proved inadequate for the satisfaction of
such artificially stimulated and now unbounded
sexual urges, free sexual relations have gradually
become the order of the day, and in the modern
West, there seems to be no limit to the occasions on
which sexual liberties may be indulged in. By
representing free relations between men and
women as being as harmless as shaking hands with
one’s friend, books, films, plays, etc., have played a
major role in encouraging the acceptance of such
behaviour as the norm.
The marriage bond, as a result, has come to be
viewed as burdensome, superfluous and outdated.
So many young men and women have started to
live together without being married that the term
“unmarried couple” has now come to be considered
just as lawful a term as “married couple.”
Where the divine
shari’ah
has established a balance
between men and women such as renders them
complements to each other, “women’s lib” claims
