One of the most popular posts on this blog is ‘But, Khadija worked’, which examined -in part, the fallacy that Khadija ‘working’ should diminish men’s financial responsibility to their wives. In the post, I used the term “wage-slave” to describe women who were forced to work outside the home. That term is harsh but valuable for its accuracy. It is not implying that all women who work, are ‘wage slaves’, in fact, I’ve never been anti-women working but rather ‘anti-women being forced to work’. A “wage slave” is essentially anyone who is forced to work in a job they otherwise wouldn’t in exchange for money. All parts of that definition are important. If you love the job you’re working in and have the freedom to leave it at will, you would not be considered a “wage slave”.
For that reason, I think it’s important to explain what exactly ‘force’ is and how it often lends a hand in women working and men reneging their responsibilities.
Economic force
This is the primary form of force. It is a common belief in our society that both husband and wife need to work to take care of a household due to the rising cost of living and relatively stagnant wages. While this may appear as the most obvious solution, it is not the only possibility nor -at times, the most sensible. If a household needs X amount of money to survive and both people work and still don’t make X amount of money, then having two incomes is incapable of meeting their needs. And if one person, the husband, brings in enough income to reach or surpasses the X amount of money they need to live, then clearly one income would suffice.
Yet the primary solution (to rising costs, stagnant wages) has been relieving men of their financial duties and placing part of that burden on women. And it should be said that this burden is placed on women’s shoulders without men freeing women of much their burden. That is, most 50/50 marriages aren’t truly 50/50 but closer to 25/75. Women take on a large share of men’s traditional responsibilities (finance) while maintaining most of their own (household management/childcare). You do not need two incomes to take care of a household you need X amount of money, how you reach that goal, will largely depend on whether or not the man takes his financial responsibility as truly a right owed to his wife or simply a “nice to have” as long as it doesn’t take much effort.
Emotional force
Some men do fully provide for their wife and children and thus economics wouldn’t play into her decision on whether or not to work. Yet, emotional support, or lack thereof, is still an issue. If a husband tells his wife that choosing not to work is ‘lazy’, ‘useless’ or a ‘waste of her education’ that would play a large role in whether or not she chooses to work.
The larger society also places emotional pressure on women to work. Even if the husband is fine with his wife not working and her children are happy to have her at home, she may constantly face scrutiny from others about her decision. Our society has seemingly come to the agreement that women who rely on men for financial security are users and dumb. Through societal shame and fearmongering, it is difficult for any woman to comfortably make the decision not to work. This form of force is more subtle but just as pervasive as the first.
Free will
A woman working through her own free will would be a woman who is free from both economic and emotional pressures. That isn’t completely possible in America where, as mentioned, even if a husband is (financially and emotionally) supportive the larger society is not. The societal pressure to get back to work after marriage or the birth of a baby would be enough to make a woman feel uneasy about not working.
But if we put that aside, when a woman knows in reality (economically) and feels (emotionally) that she doesn’t have to work then she can choose to work out of her own free will. Some women may work in order to pursue specific career goals, some may work to earn extra money for themselves, some may work to help ease their husband’s financial load, etc. When a woman works out of her own free will she feels perfectly comfortable not to work if she is sexually harassed, stressed, wants to look after a newborn or any other reason (or no reason) at all. There is nothing inherently wrong with women working even if they work to (help) provide for their family as long as it is their own free choice to do so and not a choice made out of familial or social pressure.
___________
Photo Woman in sunlight
Consider picking up a copy of my book, 40 Hadith of ‘Aisha, An English collection of 40 Hadith narrated by the beloved wife, scholar, and sage ‘Aisha bint Abu Bakr, available here. Also, consider signing up for our monthly newsletter here: bythefigandtheolive.com/newsletter. For speaking engagements visit Nuriddeenknight.com
You write so well. Thanks for speaking uncomfortable truths. Keep it up.
Thank you, Alhumdulilah appreciate the kind words 🙂
Salaam Alaikum Sister Nurriden,
This was a great article! I especially liked how you mentioned that many women feel compelled because their husbands think any kind of contribution to the household and actually resent having to shoulder the financial responsibilities by themselves. There are other points related to economic/ emotional force that I wish you had mentioned including:
1. Economic force doesn’t just come from families not having enougeh money to support themselves. It also comes from governments that depend on women being part of the workforce. People talk about the need for this country to provide free health care all the time. But in parts of the health care sector like nursing or obstetrics, the majority of workers are women. The same is true teaching, home health aids for the elderly, etc. Who Is supposed to hose sorts of jobs for the nation if women stay home? Modern society requires more and more people to participate at a humbler level.
2. couples have fewer children, and then children typically to school eventually. There is no question that childrearing ctake up a lot of one’s time but it doesn’t take all of one’s time all the time.
3. Society, including men, value women’s work at home. This is shown in the behavior of men towards their wives in my parents, and grandparents generations. The Sunnah shows us many examples of how it’s an ideal ofr a husband to consult on family, and even political matter before making decisions. But this is not a requirement, and so many men don’t consult their stay at home wives on anything. A woman who earns money, and contributes it to the household budget cannot ignored in exactly the same way.
3. A lot of women tend to draw a sense of confidence from working because they are interacting with the rest of society, and feel a sense of accomplishment in earning money.
4. Relationship stability: If a housewife ends up divorced from her husband, what is she supposed to do? Even if you are not divorced, you are the child of divorce, know someone whose parents are divorced, etc. It is so pervasive that it makes women afraid to depend on potential husbands, and by extension the husband’s family for support.
5. Connected to this: the stigma of divorce is connected to women staying at home. When divorce happens to a woman who is housewife in Pakistan and in desi culture more broadly, she has to return to her own family’s house whether it’s her father or brothers. If the woman working, she can at least compensate her family for taking her back. But if she was a housewife, the family will view her as a financial burden, an extra mouth to feed.They arranged the marriage, and they expected to stay married to the guy come hell or high water. Tis aspect of the problem of divorce is less visible in the American context b/c in the United States, a divorced woman, even an without education, can go on welfare, get a minimum wage job, and rent an apartment to live in under how name without she is a bad, dishonorable person. But in Pakistan, this is impossible. Sure we don’t live in Pakistan but I think that’s where the stigma comes from.
6. Inheritance in Islam: In the past, many wealthy women could accept staying at home becuaase they received inheritances from their families that they could fall back on. This inherantce could be in the form of land or a business that could be invested so that the income is regular. Of course, only wealthy women actually benefited from this. Poorer families tended to ignore Islamic inheritance laws which partly why this is a problem today. I would laso point that a lot of the time, if we inheritance it’s not always enough to live on and can’t be used as a backup when the male breadwinner family that we wanted doesn’t always work out in the way we hope it will.
Ultimately life is not easy. And we have to trust in the arrangments that were ordained for us by Allah (SWT). There is no perfect solution.I hope I was not being overly critical, and do think your case for women being forced to work was a good summation of most of the problems that we have.
Thanks for your valuable commentary, feeamaillah.
I meant to say that men don’t value women who stay home, as much as they like on to doing the housework. My point being they takie it for granted.