Too Many Muslim Spinsters In UK

It seems that there is a growing number of educated British Muslim women who are unmarriageable and left to spinsterhood. Educated British Muslim women are being passed over for marriage in favour of women with more traditional values from the family’s home country. Muslim women in the UK whose families hail from the Indian sub-continent are generally better educated than their male counterparts and this adds to the problem as they are thought to not want to fit the bill for what a man should want in a wife.

There is also a strong desire for a son to marry “a girl from the village.” This is hypocritical given that the family in question will have chosen to move to the UK in order to have a family life here that includes the benefit of a good education for daughters. Essentially, this is a case of what is good for our daughters isn’t right for our daughters-in-law.

Men being brought up with the notion that they should marry a woman who is intellectually inferior to them is actually quite damaging. Any marriage is bound to be massively unequal. And a child’s first teacher is almost invariably their mother. It is surely better for that child if a mother has had a good education and is therefore able to help with basic literacy, numeracy and nutrition.

Sadly, British Muslim women will continue to be “left on the shelf” until Muslim culture as a whole recognizes that education, age and life-experience in women is a good thing.

Contact the author here: jmw@morningquickie.com