Just a Light Beating

Pakistan's descent into the dark ages seemed imminent with the statement by the islamic ideology council head Molana Shirani that a husband may give a light beating to his wife as and when required. While humankind has evolved to a stage where the lasting psychological and emotional scars inflicted by physical violence are known to most civilized societies, this is an interpretation based on tunnel vision , the only motivation being to maintain the social ascendancy of the man over the woman in Pakistani society.

Now this approach has a number of aspects and implications. First, what constitutes a slight beating. depending upon the girth and size of both partners, it can be an unequal match mostly. But the more important question is, why should any of the partners need to resort to violence, albeit light, to get their way in a marital relationship. This reflects the ascendance of the man who can punish the woman as and when he feels right. If the concept of light beating is incorporated in the law, it will again establish the principle of the man's ascendancy in the relationship in a physical way, calling into equation so many freedoms that the law presently gives to women in Pakistan. The whole issue revolves around the idea of an unequal relationship between man and woman. Why a relationship may be unequal is because physically she is weaker and he is supposed to take care of her. But taking care of a weaker family member does not mean being their master. We take care of our children and old parents, but if we use the ability to take care of them as an opportunity to wield power, then the unfairness begins. This paradigm becomes even more irrelevant as more and more women are financially independent and have more of sense of self than they used to. On the flip side, the woman also takes care of the man in many ways, but does that make her justified in trying to gain mastery over her mate? No. The only answer is an equal relationship, where both partners respect and love each other, wish each other the best and try to be partners in life, rather than adversaries or competitors . The only way to achieve such a partnership is to be fair to each other, communicate to each other, not that one partners keeps taking and the other keeps giving. Both need to be aware of and be willing to make an effort to give importance to the other's desires. such a meeting point only comes when there is respect in a relationship. One partner feeling entitled to beat the other is enough to destroy respect, affection and sharing in the relationship. Allowing men to feel entitled to light beating will just reinforce the concept of being master of the woman, throwing out of  the window any chances of a mutually satisfying relationship. Considering how much importance is given to men and womens likes and dislikes while deciding marriages, the chances of being happy together are already rather slim.
The second implication of such a ruling is lack of communication in a marital relationship. How many times does a Pakistani man thinks of discussing with his life partner what her wishes and desires are? Usually its a monologue of what he wants. Many men think about asking and in their hearts their sole wish is to keep their woman happy, but our social norms inhibit his natural desire to make her wishes and thoughts important to him. It is the natural instinct for men and women to treat each other as companions and partners. That is what they were created for. However, our society scoffs at sensitive men, calling him hen pecked and so on. The concept of beating being permissible is again reinforcing this view of the man-woman relationship, which is unnatural and erroneous. It is not even Islamic. It is only an attempt to maintain the status quo and protect all the abusive men from law. Islam is not an unfair religion. It has not concept of papacy as rightly pointed out by some. However, the authority that such bodies wield allows them to affect our social fabric and to damage it in cases such as this one.
As the issue has been reduced to the supporters of the status quo against those who would change it, such as the Punjab and KP governments, Its time that the government thought about introducing women clerics, lawmakers and lawyers into these bodies, so that the ascendancy of one gender over the other in our social life is diluted. We need a system based on fairness and mutual respect.