By Amine Bendriss
Meknes, Morocco
We all know how important women are in our lives! Even Allah in his holy book emphasizes their importance and their love. In surat Al-i-Imran, Allah says: "Beautified for people is the love of that which they desire-of women and sons, heaped-up sums of gold and silver, fine branded horses, and cattle and tilled land. That is the enjoyment of worldly life, but Allah has with him the best return."
This means that men love to be next to women even if we had access to all ranges of welfare. No one would disagree with the fact that in this world, the most important quest of heterosexual men in life is women. Even some studies confirm that the majority of men think of women every 5 seconds. Thus, this world would be, for man, of no value and no test without the existence of women.
This binary of men and women is manifested through many ways and forms. “Boyfriendship” or ”girlfriendship” are one of these manifestations. In the present days, being single has become rare. Every heterosexual boy wants to have a girlfriend and vice versa. Many marriages were the incarnation of a relationship between a boy and a girl. A boy sees a girl and asks her to be his girlfriend. And things either go smoothly giving us the seeds of a marriage or they just end up fading away.
However, I personally don’t understand one thing when Boyfriendship/girlfriendship is at stake. Some men want to have girlfriends, but they get very angry when they discover that their sisters have boyfriends also. Regardless of the different reasons that might be behind such a stand, it is very contradictory! How can we permit ourselves to do something and prohibit others from doing it? I have witnessed many situations where this controversial point is raised. I know many guys who think in this way. In fact not many guys, more like all of them, including me, can’t accept their daughters or sisters’ romantic relationships. Since this is one of the thorniest topics in our society that remains unanswered, I tried to discuss it with other people to have a clearer view.
One man told me that it’s okay for him to have affairs with girls but his sister or daughter can’t. In attempting to justify this stance he said that he, as a boy, had nothing to lose, but his sister could lose a lot. Trying to understand, I asked him to consider the view of his girlfriend’s brother? Might he also feel the same way and try to end their relationship for no good reason? The man had no answer.Another one said “I personally don’t believe in relationships. The idea of having relationships should not exist in our society because it only leads to the disintegration of morality. That’s why.” He continued on, saying “things like this shouldn’t exist. Our religion insists on only one legal relationship between men and women. It is marriage.”
Such a discussion demands a woman’s point of view above all. I thus asked the same question to a young woman. She had the following to say:
“A man who is allowed to have a girlfriend and yet doesn’t let his sister have a boyfriend may seem selfish, hypocritical, and unserious, but he could actually be quite the opposite. There are some men who refuse to let their sisters have a relationship out of love and fear for their welfare. They trust their sisters, but they don’t trust men and are unsure of their intentions towards their sisters. This kind of man is serious about their romantic relationships, and they believe that they can take care of their girlfriends while being unsure that other guys can be like them. So there are two types of men: those who refuse out of selfishness and hypocrisy and others who refuse out of fear for their sisters.”
Is this not hypocrisy? Is it really true that men have nothing to lose in comparison with women? In my opinion, these views perfectly embody our contradictory reality.
This kind of relationship, that is, unmarried couples, has become very dominant. A quick visit to cafes or parks would be enough to see couples hanging out together without any legal document that technically legitimizes their outing. There are even some relationships which result in catastrophes like illegitimate children, suicides, lost hopes, etc.
I believe that there are many different positions on this issue. Everyone sees it from his or her own view although they don’t seem very capable of supporting their opinions. One has to shoulder the responsibility of their decision no matter how opinionated they are. Above all, they should think twice about their relationship with women, bearing in mind that what goes around, comes around, and that all women should always be treated with respect.
Edited by Anna Jacobs
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Morocco World News’ editorial policy
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