During one of my last meetings in August of 2008, I met the group at Bey’s Mosque for an afternoon prayer. Following the prayer, which was attended by six core members of the group, we sat in the courtyard of the mosque discussing that most likely of topics among young single women, marriage. As the majority of the women were single, the topic was important for all of us; it was forum in which we could discuss the intricate details of
married life and ask questions of each, the answers to which could not be found in religious texts. For the women in the group, marriage was about more than just being a mother and a wife, but marriage was also about being a good Muslim woman. Consistently my pious informants shared that to be a proper Muslim was to be a good mother and a wife. Their
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Islamic personhood was defined by their relationship to men, but more importantly to observing women’s duties as prescribed by Islam. Belkisa stated that,
part of being a good Muslim woman involves being a good wife and a mother.
Marriage, according to the Qur’an, was an indispensable part of Islam as a set of beliefs and practices. For Devla, who joined us for a short period of time that evening, marriage was a way to release the burden she felt when she was single. She elaborated.
A married woman is ahead [of a single woman]. They are not burdened by those things that burden women who are not married…such as what she looks like and what she’s wearing. I think many people have a romantic ideal of what marriage will be like, something fantastic, beautiful. Nobody thinks about how much work it is. Many women go into marriage with a wrong assumption to look for someone that will take their breath away, someone they will fall in love with. Fall in love and go blind. To me, being in love equals being blind. But when people start to really take a look they see other person’s issues, and they start coming up with all the things they don’t like about the other person. This is where Islam is ahead in terms of marriage. Different things are important. There is no being blind before marriage. It’s about the relationship. The couple must work on the relationship.
All the members of our network often talked about the ways in which female bodies were sexualized, they mentioned billboards with sexually explicit images of women, and seeing young couples publicly express their affection and attraction. Often, my informants talked about the pressure for young women to have sex before marriage. The expectations of young women were to please their boyfriends in any way they could. Each woman in the group had a friend, a cousin, or colleague that experienced pressures of non-marital
intimacy. From our interactions and interviews I was confident that all of the women in the group, except for one, were virgins and planned to remain as such until marriage. Marriage, for women who wanted to avoid these pressures, was an answer to the lack of respect for
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women by young men. Many of my informants expressed that it was impossible to escape the pressures to behave as the young men expected them. My informants said that many young women could no longer keep their boyfriends without having to please them in a sexual manner. For the women in this group, Islam was a solution to these pressures, and this was their ticket out of falling prey to men’s sexual needs. Belkisa commented,
…modern society saw women as bodies to be objectified, and there was no more respect for the important work women do.
This particular comment exemplified Belkisa’s dissatisfaction with what she deemed “immoral dating practices including pre-marital sex”. Belkisa, like many group members, believed that non-marital sex lead to men exploiting women. Women I interviewed commonly discussed men’s sexual needs, but on several occasions they mentioned that women have them as well, but that women were better at controlling them. Marriage, as a contract, was the only way in which a woman could control her sexuality and her future. Guarding their sexuality was important for two reasons: Islam deems non-marital sex a sin, and sex was one of the primary ways in which “men used women.” Nihada said that young women,
…had to follow these norms that were put forth by the society. On television they are constantly bombarded with images of half-naked women…and yet they tell me I am primitive, that I am not modern.
Constrained by Bosnia’s cultural beliefs and practices, these women perceive that the only way to gain respect from men, as well as respect themselves, was to observe this rule in
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everyday life16. The only way a young woman could meet a man to marry would be through dating. Dating was the only solution for pious Muslim women since Bosnia had few
arranged marriages, a rather common practice in other Muslim countries throughout the world. One way in which women were able to both date and remain true to Islamic life was by engaging in Sharia Dating. This practice combined dating in a western sense with Islamic law that restricts intimacy between a man and a woman before marriage. I further discuss the importance of Sharia dating in Chapter 8 when I focus on different strategies pious Muslim women employ in their quest to live a fully coherent Muslim life.
Understanding marriage as a protective union in a world that has been hyper- sexualized through media (and exposure to western gender relationships and values) was one of the ways in which members of the group empowered themselves. Islamic duty allowed these women a way out of one type of patriarchal structure into another. In effect, these women swapped the hyper-sexualized western gender roles for Islamic gender roles that completely restricted women’s sexuality. Nevertheless, these young women felt that they were freed by Islam. In this way, they were empowered, but no more or less than their conventional Muslim counterparts. Their choice to stay virgins and save sex for marriage was validated through Islam. Without a doubt, pious young women saw sex as a risk; a bargain that left them without security. Pre-marital sex for non-pious women was also a concern, however, contraception was easily available, and there were few children born out of wedlock. In any case, among both my pious and conventional informants, birth control
16 Being that all the women involved in the small faith-based group were virgins, we never discussed intimacy
or sexuality, as it would be an embarrassing topic of discussion for unmarried women trying to live their lives as conscious Muslims.