SECOND INSTANCE OF WISDOM

The geniune, intense relationship, love, and affection between men and women do not arise only from the needs of worldly life. Yes, a woman is a companion to her husband not only in this worldly life, she is his companion in eternal life too. Since she will be her husband’s companion in eternal life, she surely should not attract the looks of others besides her husband, her everlasting friend and companion, and should not offend him and make him  jealous. In consequence of the mystery of belief, her believing husband’s relations with her  are not confined to this worldly life and his love is not only animal and temporary, so long  as her beauty lasts; he holds true, earnest love and respect for her because she will be his companion in eternal life. And he bears that love and respect for her, not only during her youth when she is beautiful, but also when she is old and unsightly. Certainly in return for this, she should show her beauties to him alone and restrict her love to him; this is demanded by humanity. Otherwise she would gain very little and lose much.

According to the Shari‘a, the husband should be a good match for the wife. That is, they should be suitable to one another. The most important aspect of this is with a view to religion.

Happy the  husband  who  sees  the  wife’s  firm  religion  and  follows  her,  and

himself becomes pious in order not to lose his companion of eternal life.

Happy the wife who sees her husband’s firmness in religion and becomes pious so as not to lose her eternal friend.

Alas for the  man who  becomes dissolute,  which will lose  him  for  ever that

righteous woman.

Alas for the woman who does not follow her pious husband and loses her eternal blessed friend.

And a thousand woes on the unhappy husband and wife who imitate each other in

sin and vice, helping one another to enter Hell-fire!

THIRD INSTANCE OF WISDOM

Happy family life is perpetuated through mutual confidence between husband and wife, and heartfelt respect and love. Immodest dress and free-and-easy behaviour destroy the confidence, and spoil the mutual respect and love. For out of ten women who favour immodest dress only one will not try to make herself liked by strangers because she does not find other men more attractive than her husband. Nine will find others better than their husbands. And only one out of twenty men will not find other women more attractive. Then besides the true love and mutual respect disappearing, it may arouse extremely ugly and base feelings, as follows: