Prostrate To The Husband
A husband does not own his wife. So what is hers is hers. Precedence doesn’t mean ownership. Ghamidi sahab also said this many times, whether she wants to do job or not is to be decided by their mutual understanding. But the final decision has to be with the husband, not the wife. Someone has to have the final say, if the wife has to have the final say, then she should be given more responsibilities than her husband as well…
This is not about precedence or power. If we understand this in the scheme of God, it makes perfect sense. God has decided to grant humans an eternal life of joy and comfort based on a rather difficult challenge called life. He has further decided to send humans to this world through the process of procreation. This gives a very interesting spin to our test. We get bound by bonds of kinship, and it creates another dimension of the test for everyone involved. Our greatest bond is with our Creator, and closest next is with our parents. The most important aspect of these bonds is that of sustenance. Both our Creator, as well as our parents help us sustain life on earth which is necessary for us to be able take our tests. This in turn requires us to hold both God and our parents (in that order) at respective levels of higher status in our lives. Similarly, when a couple decides to get married, God places the responsibility of providing sustenance for the entire family upon the man. The woman may choose to earn a living as well, but she’s not compelled to do so. Even if she does, she’s not required to contribute anything to her family. For the great burden of helping an entire family sustain life on earth, the man (husband) is also granted a degree higher in status. When we understand and appreciate this entire scheme, everything falls in place and we no longer look at this subject from the perspective of superiority of one gender over another, but rather from the perspective of rights and responsibilities of husbands and wives.