Dear Reader,
This week all the Swiftie fans swooned over the release of Taylor Swift’s new album, Tortured Poets Department. Skimming through the 31 tracks (hay mucho!) I feel it’s more or less an extension of Evermore and Folkmore, the albums she released during the height of the pandemic. They’ve all got that ethereal quality to them: alto pitch with lots of soft instruments. The only song that really seemed to resonate with me was LOML. It normally stands for “love of my life,” but for Taylor it meant “loss of my life.” Clever, eh?
The lyrics had me thinking a lot about the LOML (both versions of the made up acronym).
In one vein, I reminisce about the past, revisiting the many good days I had with X. On the other hand, I think about the loss I’ve experienced and how universal that pain is. You see, Taylor Swift is the last person in the world that could relate to someone like me: a Black and Muslim lawyer/writer hijabi who got married at age 30, and was divorced by age 31.
And yet, her lyrics seem to resonate with the heartbreak I’ve experienced in the last few months.
You said I'm the love of your life
About a million times
Who's gonna tell me the truth
When you blew in with the winds of fate
And told me I reformed you
When your impressionist paintings of heaven turned out to be fakes,
Well, you took me to hell too
And all at once the ink bleeds
A conman sells a fool a get-love-quick scheme
But I felt a hole like this never before and ever since
Here, in these lyrics Swift recaps a love story gone awry. One minute a man is telling her she’s the love of his life, and the next he’s a “conman” who “took me to hell.”
And that’s the universality of Taylor Swift– the country music star turned American pop-icon. She writes these ballads and all those who have ever loved (or ever day-dreamed about love) feel like she’s telling their story track after track.
The pain, the devastation, the misery, the longing, the regret, and the feeling of loss all cascade together. And just like love, I’ve learned that heartbreak is universal. We don’t have to share the same religion, educational background, race, or economic class to understand that when a man (and let’s be real, it's usually the men) don’t want to commit, or they break their promises and leave, a woman loses a part of herself. And while she will always come back ten times stronger after she’s been scorned, a woman will always carry that damaged part with her. It will remain in her treasure trove of experiences to learn from and never return to. She is not her heartbreak, but her heartbreak becomes part of her quilt of life experiences, never to be fully forgotten.
A Message to All the Aspiring Trad Wives:
On another note, not so related, but very top of mind these days as I think about what’s trendy, is the Trad Wives phenomenon. Even if you’ve never heard the term, I promise you’ve seen it. It’s all over IG and Tik Tok. I’ll be scrolling through the reels and all of a sudden come across a video of a very pretty woman (usually she’s white), wearing a 1950’s or country-girl-esque, summery cotton dress, with her apron on baking up a storm. She’ll be cooking in her aesthetically pleasing kitchen possibly with her eight children in the background (yes, one of these trad wives is famous partly for having eight kids). Or she’ll be knee-deep in other domestic duties, but looking like she just came out of a photoshoot for Town & Country magazine. Either way, she’ll tell you how much she loves making everything from scratch, homeschooling the kids, and waiting for her husband to come so she can serve him a beautifully plated steak dinner.
It’s funny how the new generation has to put a new name on an old phenomenon: Stay At Home Mom (SAHM). Trad (which stands for Traditional) wives are the new version of the SAHM, but with better clothes and a nicer skin care routine.
I remember when I was little and I wished my mother stayed at home to do all the domestic things that some of my friends’ mothers did. My mother spent some years working retail, and some years being at home with us. But even when she was playing SAHM, she was usually too sick to get out of bed and do the cooking, cleaning and fun-making that some of these trad wives do.
Because we always want what we didn’t have as children, when I was around twenty-seven or twenty-eight, I started thinking about how cool it would be if I got married, had kids and became a SAHM. I guess I was so jaded by the legal field that I began to dream about what it would be like to do the domestic things I so loved–sewing, gardening, baking, throwing dinner parties– while being married and having kids. I aspired to be what today they’re calling the “trad wife.”
And at the same time, I started meeting potential suitors who wanted trad wives too. These men had more conservative views about women and our roles in society.
I remember one guy who was a convert, but had spent some time learning about Islam in Jordan, said he would require his wife to stay at home. It was a non-negotiable for him. He didn’t believe a woman’s place was outside the home. And let me tell you this man was not Arab, or South Asian, or African. He was WHITE! He said he had observed the role of women in Jordan who stayed home and wanted that for himself. I said “good luck buddy!” because most of the educated, Muslim women in the U.S that I knew wanted options. We want choice. We don’t want to be relegated to one role or the other.
Conversations like that turned me off to being a trad wife or SAHM.
My opinion over the last few years continues to morph. When I got married, I got X to agree that I would exit the work force for some time after my student loans were paid off. That way I could enjoy some time with a newborn and then go back into the workforce. It was also understood that I would always bring in my own money through free lance writing. I believed, and still do, that a good husband is one that supports his wife whether she chooses to maintain her career after children or not. And I believe that Islam, gives women both options.
There are so many stories from the time of the Prophet SWS, showing that he shared the domestic burdens by doing housework and lived amongst Muslim women (including his wives) that were very active in society as teachers, business women, warriors etc. The stories and lessons from the time of the Prophet SWS show me that the role of women is versatile and should not be pigeon-holed to just one role— housewife or career woman.
That being said, after my divorce, my opinion once again changed. After hearing the stories of other Muslim women who have been left or had to leave their marriage abruptly due to emotional or physical abuse, I think the trad wife trend is no good.
Hear me out please. I’m not trying to put any group of women down, or make them feel lesser than. I am speaking out of caution.
I have heard stories of women who were married for as much as thirty years, who came from overseas where they were doctors, scientists, or engineers, and gave up their career (didn’t take licensing or educational courses needed to work here) so that they could care for their children. Then, after decades of devoting themselves to their families, their husbands leave them.
Now, the woman who hasn’t been working for decades, doesn’t have the skills or up-to-date credentials to enter the workforce and therefore is completely screwed. Without hefty savings or strong family support (which not everyone has), you might really struggle financially if you’re a trad wife/mom who has been out of the workforce for years, and your husband decides to divorce you.
You might be saying “well, at least I’ve got my education, I can always get a job.” My response is maybe! However, because we live in a sexist and ageist society, it might take years to wiggle your way back into the job market after years of being out of it.
There are studies that show women suffer significantly more than men when they get divorced. One study found that women over 50 who divorced faced a 45% drop in their standard of living, while a man’s standard of living dropped by 21%. That’s a massive difference.
Another possible defense to my no-trad-wife-life argument is “well that’s why Islam includes a mehr.” The mehr, or dowry, is something baked into our religion that in theory should help protect women. Some cultures even believe in a “divorce mehr1” which is a sum of money that is only given to the wife in the instance of divorce.
Unfortunately, some of us (your girl is one of them), marry for love over money and don’t ask for a significant mehr. I’ve also heard horror stories where the mehr doesn’t save a woman from financial ruin because the husband doesn’t give her the mehr. He ignores the agreement in the nikkah contract and a court of law fails to uphold it as a valid contract. Some women don’t even have support from a U.S court of law, because they decided not to get legally married by the state (which I highly advise against).
If I end up marrying again, and having children inshaAllah, I will always keep one foot in the job market and one foot at home. Although it’s really hard to juggle both worlds, and one will surely suffer because as much as Hollywood or corporate America tries to feed us the b.s of you can do it all, we are only human beings. We don’t have enough time or energy to do everything well, all at once. And yet, I would still have peace of mind and protection from financial ruin if my husband abruptly decided (again) to leave.
Here’s my final message to all you trad wives: Be smart. Have your own money. Find some type of part-time gig, freelance or contract work, that will bring in consistent sums that you don’t need to share with your spouse, but that you can save or better yet invest in halal stocks. Even if you can’t leave the house, make and sell crafts or take part in cooking at-home meals for sale (e.g. Shef). Do something that will give you financial security and allow you to plan for the worst case scenario. Never depend on a man to be there forever. Allah is the only one who will never leave you.
May God protect all the marriages in our community and may he bring strength to the divorced women and single mamas.
Love,
ND
As always, please consult a shaykh for an official opinion. I am not an Islamic scholar.
This one is so important ND!!! I remember a Muslim woman scholar this Ramadan (?Dr. Rania Awwad or Sheikha Maryam Amiribrahimi) shared the idea of how women can use their mehr to invest in their financial security, and gave the example of using it to buy a taxi cab or truck (which can be rented to someone for their business). I myself was in my early 20s when I got married, and nobody took the Mehr/ mu2akharr conversations as a dealbreaker. I remember being told after the fact what the agreed amount was, and frankly I didn’t care because I was so in love. Nobody thinks about divorce when they’re planning a wedding but it’s best to have some humility and recognize people and circumstances change. Now I’m suddenly a divorced single mom and although I didn’t have mahr to fall back on, alhamdillah Allah caught me and ultimately provides for us all. The greater lesson though which you state so well though is sisters but also parents, fathers, brothers, etc, mahr is not a joke— advocate for ur sister’s future and security