Meranao Women Speak: Islam as Resistance to Forced Marriage
illustration by
Han Le
Arranged marriage is a common practice among the Meranao, an ethnolinguistic group in the Muslim-dominant region of Mindanao in the Southern Philippines. This practice functions to solidify alliances and maintain the cultural and ethnic purity of the tribe. Women, more often than men, bear the burden of being fetishized as a representation of their culture and are pressed into accepting constraints on their autonomy. It is Meranao women who are made commodities in order to ensure peace in their communities. Before discussing any further, it is important to note that while arranged marriage continues among the Meranao, not all arranged marriages are “forced” and some families do allow their daughters more autonomy in deciding who to wed. The women who dominated my conversations on the topic were educated and from middle to upper middle class families. Their experiences and interpretations are not to be taken as representative of the whole Meranao community. This brief article offers a cursory insight into the practice and religious-backed shift against it.
Forced arranged marriage is a violence to which many women resign themselves in order to maintain family ties. Speaking to one such woman in a darkened parlor on a warm night, she tells me how she traveled to Metro Manila to get away from her husband. She adjusts her black veil and tucks it behind her ears as she recalls her wedding. Forced by her family to marry a much older man at the age of seventeen and expected to resign to her fate without complaint. She labels arranged marriage as un-Islamic and emphasizes the importance of courtship prior to marriage. She elaborates that women have the right to consent to a marriage and that the couple are expected to spend time together to know if they are compatible before being wed. According to her, it is not Islamically permissible to force a woman into a marriage. She tells me she envies the younger generation who can interact with the opposite gender more freely and develop romantic relationships organically.
A sad smile crosses her face as she informs me that she had to consummate her marriage with a complete stranger many years her elder. Early on in her marriage she tried to be a dutiful wife and tried to elicit feelings of love in her new husband, but grew more and more emotionally exhausted in her efforts as the years wore on. She feels no love for her husband, but divorce is not an option for her because it would mean severing ties with her family. She would have her autonomy, but lose her clan—a structure that upholds not only her identity, but her security—both economic and emotional. To her as to many others, “being Meranao is stronger than being Muslim.”
Why does arranged marriage continue as a practice?
Meranaos prize the purity of their cultural heritage and delineate who is and who isn’t Meranao through a variety of ways. Bloodlines and kinship are of the utmost importance, but so is adhering to cultural indicators such as religious belief, cultural knowledge, and tribal language. The Meranao are highly endogamous. While marriage outside the tribe is not unheard of, generally it is only an option enjoyed by men. Marriage to non-Muslim women or Muslim converts circumvents the obligation of bride price, thus alleviating the financial burden placed on a man and his family. Even if there exists this sort of economic incentive to marry outside the tribe, it is not without consequence. A man may have to move away from his community--his reputation degraded by taking a non-Meranao wife-- and if any children are born out of such union, they are often denied their Meranao heritage by the broader Meranao community.
Meranao women are too valuable a commodity for their families to allow for marriage outside the tribe. A bride not only brings in material wealth to her family, but also prestige and social elevation. A resource so treasured, but denied her own agency for the collective benefit of her family and clan. Women are also used to mediate intra-clan rido (blood feuds) and it is not uncommon for women to be wed to distant relatives. Through women the security and stability of the clan is assured, along with its wealth.
Islam as Liberation
Many of the women to whom I have spoken are college-educated, young professionals who still find themselves trapped by their cultural obligations and kinship. Many have turned to Islam as way to combat the idea of arranged marriage. Islam is thus utilized as a tool of liberation that would allow them to enter romantic relationships on their own terms.
None of the women I came across described forced arranged marriage as an “Islamic” custom. They mostly described it as a cultural practice born out of a belief in cultural superiority. The collective opinion was that it was the lack of consent by the bride that makes this practice exterior to Islam, but given the importance of the family in Meranao culture one is compelled to acceptance even if forced arranged marriage is theologically suspect.
Although major media outlets tend to portray Islam as a hindrance to women’s emancipation, to these women, Islam offers them agency that their local culture denies. Of course there are families that justify arranged marriage through Islamic sources to stymie any potential dissent, but with the rise of more Salafist interpretations of Islam within the Philippines there is a steady dismantling of traditional cultural structures across many of the Islamized tribes.
Islam, compared to feminism or human rights ideologies, may serve better to aid in dismantling the practice of forced arranged marriage by virtue of already being deeply ingrained in the community and not a “foreign” or “Western” discourse viewed as antithetical to traditional values. Islam has the potential to become a more dominant force in reshaping traditional cultural norms with the rise of more Salafist strains of thought into the Southeast Asian region, bolstered by foreign money and foreign dawah institutes that draw in Muslim youth to their activities and seminars. These religious ideologies are generally not seen as foreign intrusions, but as unadulterated Islamic teachings and thus do not face the same sort of resistance. Narratives that fall outside an Islamic ideological framework are cast aside. For example, feminism especially, is seen by many as an inherently alien phenomenon that has no overlap with neither Islamic thought nor local customs and is seen as another attempt to dissuade those from their cultural roots, in favor of yet another colonial ideal that upholds the supremacy of Western values.
The influx of Salafist interpretations tend to be more universalist in nature--widening yet homogenizing the ummah via material and spiritual manifestations believed to mimic and embody the Sahaba. The current dawah being preached and accepted as legitimate gravitates towards forced or compelled arranged marriages being impermissible under Islam. Certain textual justifications form the basis of this view illustrating that marriage necessitates a woman’s consent:
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُواْ لاَ يَحِلُّ لَكُمْ أَن تَرِثُواْ النِّسَاء كَرْهًا وَلاَ تَعْضُلُوهُنَّ لِتَذْهَبُواْ بِبَعْضِ مَا آتَيْتُمُوهُنَّ إِلاَّ أَن يَأْتِينَ بِفَاحِشَةٍ مُّبَيِّنَةٍ وَعَاشِرُوهُنَّ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ فَإِن كَرِهْتُمُوهُنَّ فَعَسَى أَن تَكْرَهُواْ شَيْئًا وَيَجْعَلَ اللّهُ فِيهِ خَيْرًا كَثِيراً
O you who have believed, it is not lawful for you to inherit women by compulsion. And do not make difficulties for them in order to take [back] part of what you gave them unless they commit a clear immorality. And live with them in kindness. For if you dislike them - perhaps you dislike a thing and Allah makes therein much good.
(Ayat an-Nisa’ 4:19, Sahih International translation of the Qur’an)
حَدَّثَنَا مُعَاذُ بْنُ فَضَالَةَ، حَدَّثَنَا هِشَامٌ، عَنْ يَحْيَى، عَنْ أَبِي سَلَمَةَ، أَنَّ أَبَا هُرَيْرَةَ، حَدَّثَهُمْ أَنَّ النَّبِيَّ صلى الله عليه وسلم قَالَ "لاَ تُنْكَحُ الأَيِّمُ حَتَّى تُسْتَأْمَرَ وَلاَ تُنْكَحُ الْبِكْرُ حَتَّى تُسْتَأْذَنَ ". قَالُوا يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ وَكَيْفَ إِذْنُهَا قَالَ " أَنْ تَسْكُتَ ".
Abu Huraira narrated: The Prophet (pbuh) said, "A matron should not be given in marriage except after consulting her; and a virgin should not be given in marriage except after her permission." The people asked, "O Allah's Messenger (pbuh)! How can we know her permission?" He said, "Her silence (indicates her permission).
( Sahih al-Bukhari, 5136)
حَدَّثَنَا إِسْمَاعِيلُ، قَالَ حَدَّثَنِي مَالِكٌ، عَنْ عَبْدِ الرَّحْمَنِ بْنِ الْقَاسِمِ، عَنْ أَبِيهِ، عَنْ عَبْدِ الرَّحْمَنِ، وَمُجَمِّعٍ، ابْنَىْ يَزِيدَ بْنِ جَارِيَةَ عَنْ خَنْسَاءَ بِنْتِ خِذَامٍ الأَنْصَارِيَّةِ، أَنَّ أَبَاهَا، زَوَّجَهَا وَهْىَ ثَيِّبٌ، فَكَرِهَتْ ذَلِكَ فَأَتَتْ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم فَرَدَّ نِكَاحَهُ.
Khansa bint Khidam Al-Ansariya narrated: that her father gave her in marriage when she was a matron and she disliked that marriage. So she went to Allah's Messenger (pbuh) and he declared that marriage invalid.
(Sahih al-Bukhari, 5138)
Women I have spoken to have couched their dissent within Islamic propriety. Often, they tend towards a belief that Islam has an inherent sense of female empowerment ingrained in its doctrine that would rival contemporary feminist discourse. The reality of the matter is not as important as the belief that this is fact to many that operationalize their lives within the framework of Islam. With this understanding, forced arranged marriage is a black and white issue of Islamic morality and sharia in their eyes.
There is a belief among some of the women interviewed that continued religious education would eventually cause a decline in forced arranged marriages within the tribe. This shift in religious interpretation being used to demolish forced arranged marriage and offer women freedom to chose a partner only extends liberation in so far that it is still within the heteropatriarchal confines of normative Islamic tradition. It is a double-edged sword that may free women from the confines of their culture only to offer them another cage in which they must conform. Much of what is considered proper Islamic belief still upholds traditional gender roles and the sexualization of women through ideals of modesty. These different interpretations of Islam that are taking root in the Philippines may begin to erode customs like arranged marriage, but given the ingrained traditions that uphold the supremacy of the family and ethnocentric views of those in the Meranao community, abandonment of this practice may be far off.
A ray of hope to emerge is that Islam offers Meranao women the ability to assert their power by utilizing religious interpretation to shield themselves from patriarchal violence. But, it has yet to be seen if these new interpretations will truly be transformative enough to grant women freedom beyond that of traditional marriage expectations. Islam occupies a unique position which allows for the challenging of tradition without the threat of being made an outsider.