What Challenges Does Muslim Family Face in the West?

Salaam mr. Ramadan. I appreciate you talking about this subject. I know it´s important to take marriage and family seriously. But I have also come to the point that I think I owe it to myself and many of my sisters to take our experience seriously as well:

We are women in our late twenties, early thirties that are not married and maybe won’t get married (soon) either. Not because we are stubborn (well maybe a little…) but because…
– We have learned to be cautious because we saw people marrying and ending up in little hells;
– We do take marriage seriously, we want it to be a once in a lifetime experience, and with divorce being rampant we are not too optimistic about that either;
– And when you are older adjusting to someone else and putting your fate in his hands doesn’t become easier;
– Add to this the often negative experience we had when we were most dependent when growing up which made us want to not be in that situation too easy again;
– And then of course there is the question of compatibility: who to marry with…

All this adds up to a situation in which women of my age are not married and maybe will, maybe won’t get married; but this situation for now is very real and calls for being taken seriously. But it isn’t. Our community doesn’t know yet what to do with women like us. There used to be two categories: the good girls/women who obeyed and married young and the ‘bad’ ones who did what they wanted and got into problems. Both were clear cases, but now you have women who don’t fit either. We are a category of our own. We shouldn’t be complaining too much, because we have a lot going for us but we feel like we are in limbo. People don’t talk about it and we feel like we are not understood, and we ourselves don’t know what to make of the situation.

So maybe next to the discourse about marriage and the importance of family, the community and muslim leaders could help us to give some meaning to this state of not being and getting married. What does it mean to not be married when over thirty? How can one still lead a good, moral life? But also practical questions like: to live alone or with family? It’s a real situation and these are real questions.

Mr. Ramadan, know that I am writing to you because I think of you as my brother and to be honest, if you don´t understand I don´t think anybody will.