marriage

You've GOT to be kidding me. How is this guy allowed to be a grand mufti?

"It is incorrect to say that it's not permitted to marry off girls who are 15 and younger," Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh, the kingdom's grand mufti, said in remarks quoted Wednesday in the regional Al-Hayat newspaper. "A girl aged 10 or 12 can be married. Those who think she's too young are wrong and they are being unfair to her."

"Unfair to her"? A 47-year-old man marries an 8-year-old and a judge refuses to annul the marriage, then this guy comes out and has the balls to say something as foul as this? If this is what Wahhabism stands for, then it's utter shit. Mr. Al-Sheikh, you have neither the clarity of conscience nor the common decency of a good Muslim. Allah will judge you, but if he wants a character witness at your trial, I'm first in line. Right behind every woman who wants to cut in front of me.

I received this question via our feedback form and am posting it here. I know how I feel about this, but I'd like the wisdom of the PI crowd to weigh in on this.

Assalamu alaikum

My name is *********..and I am married to a muslim....I always wish to live according the right path of Islam...Here I have a query regarding a muslim marrying to a non muslim girl..I would like to know if Islam accept this kind of marriage..I know it is a sin..but I dont know how to help my friend who is going to marry in the next...

The guy is my close relative ...all the members of the family have accepted this marriage...but I dont know how should I react to this marriage.. can u help me

Where do I go from here?
My dreams are shattered, my heart in ruins.
The glowing shell of my life has fallen away, revealing a core of pain and despair.
Seated in the rubble of love gone wrong, I stare at nothing, waiting for vision.

What shall I dream for myself?
I dare not imagine, it seems beyond me.
The grey days of my soul are mocked by the relentless continuance of existence.
Tears abate themselves in eyes viewing horrors too pale to speak of.

When will my miracles arrive?
I watch the heavens, half dreading the sight.

My question in the headline comes from this sentence of an article about the American Christian movement: The religious right is "not simply a religious movement or a political movement; it has also, and above all, been a sexual movement."
....

DH and I, before getting hitched, agreed that any name change I may make need not be legal- the expense and general bother just wasn't worth it to us.  Alas, the many surprises that marriage brings included a complete about-face on the legal name change issue.

A bride may await me, someone who I do not know, someone who is eager to accept the proposal and draw up the contract that will legally define our relationship. I don't know what to think, where will she live? I have no means to support her, I can barely support myself right now as a student. I hope this is nothing more than talk, and nothing that may become reality, but I have a photo of her, I'm single now, but what to do?

I just realized in a flash of brilliance how a woman can have more than one husband in Islam! Temporary Marriage! If she's got a set schedule with them, she can make each contracted period end before the next one arrives.

Now if I were to become a second wife, I would insist on this sort of thing.

As the fairy tale goes, what is good for the golden goose is....wait how does it go?

*This is part of the "fractured" series and is meant to be taken lightly, as a joke even, with a bit of deeper meaning to be found at its heart. The fractured series is based on "Fractured Fairy Tales" from the old Rocky and Bullwinkle show.

I've had to collect several snappy answers to the "Why aren't you married yet?" question, and my grandma was sweet enough (grandmas are like that) to supply me with a great one today.

She's getting hitched!

She's 87, and marrying a guy she's dated for years. They wanted to marry a while back, but his children were very much against it. My grandma's fiance finally had enough of his kids' bellyaching, and overrode their objections. So they plan to get married as soon as the lawyer can complete the pre-nup.

Did I tell you that my grandma is totally awesome? No? Well, she is.

Dan Varisco's post on gay marriage, the trade of young brides in Afghanistan, and the value of marriage on his group-blog Tabsir is so sensible it just makes me still with gratitude. Most of Varisco's writing is like this. He is one of those who combine comprehensive knowledge of an area and common sense. Here he offers a summary analysis of the historical value of marriage and suggests we might consider that there would be no loss of value should gay marriage be legitimized. Cultures have typically used marriage to build legitimate alliances between families or communities, regulate sexual access to fertile women, and consequently protect the validity of the alliance through the legitimacy of the offspring. It is only rarely about love. The child brides given over for debt in Afghanistan are symptomatic of marriage as alliance in its worst manifestation. Needless to say here, such marriages are not Islamically legal. But we all know too that few care what legal scholars have to say.