IDEA 48
When Women Rule
For, a husband and wife being each a part of every family, the state may be considered as about equally divided into men and women; and, therefore, in those states in which the condition of the women is bad, half the city may be regarded as having no laws. And this is what has actually happened at Sparta; the legislator wanted to make the whole state hardy and temperate, and he has carried out his intention in the case of the men, but he has neglected the women, who live in every sort of intemperance and luxury. The consequence is that in such a state wealth is too highly valued, especially if the citizens fall under the dominion of their wives, after the manner of most warlike races … [Aristotle: Politics, Book II, Chapter 9]
Because men and women have divinely assigned spheres of activity, namely the external and internal, and achieve their highest aims when they cultivate the martial (protective) and domestic (protected) virtues, respectively, there is much to be said about what happens to a society when these two halves neglect their proper domains.
In the Arab countries of the Gulf — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and the U.A.E. — we have clear examples of what happens to a supposedly patriarchal society when its men are no longer devoted to jihad. They become spoiled, corrupt, lazy, and effeminate.
What happens to women when they are surrounded by opulence and extravagance? Do they try to take power from the men? Why should they bother? According to Aristotle, “what difference does it make whether women rule, or the rulers are ruled by women?” If the men permit their shopping trips, buy them palatial homes, encourage them to dress ostentatiously at home (and so they do, according to Gulf country insiders), and indulge their taste for luxury, what wealthy woman could long resist the pressure of her social environment for the sake of her faith?
In just one page of Aristotle’s Politics, we can see him comparing the social and political conditions of various Greek city-states, each with its own peculiar institutions and customs — Lacedaemon, Crete, Thessaly, Argos, Messene, Arcadia, Achaea, Perrhaebia, and Magnesia — with those of the Celts. The cultural variety he refers to far exceeds the general homogeneity of our current world-wide ruling elites, all of whom travel abroad, consume similar social media, and enjoy comparable lifestyles. Aristotle is revealing what happens to the most spartan society imaginable, namely Sparta itself, when the quest for power infects its inner sanctum, the home and family.
The history of Sparta after its victory over Athens in the Peloponnesian War (404 BCE) bears this out. Only thirty-three years later (371 BCE), Sparta lost its dominant position to Thebes at the Battle of Leuctra and never regained it. Thucydides foreshadowed this defeat by mentioning how the thirst for Persian gold gradually eroded Sparta’s moral and institutional integrity.
What Aristotle condemned in Sparta, namely its indulgence of women’s independence and consequent love of wealth, the Wikipedia article on Sparta indirectly confirms even as it sees these vices as progressive virtues. “Most importantly, Spartan women had economic power because they controlled their own properties, and those of their husbands. It is estimated that in later Classical Sparta, when the male population was in serious decline, women were the sole owners of at least 35% of all land and property in Sparta.”
Aristotle does not blame the women for their licentiousness, but rather “the legislator” who failed to include women in his regime of temperance and simplicity. Compare that with this verse from Q33:28 — O Prophet! Tell your wives, “If you would like to have this worldly life and its adornment, then come: I will give you a stipend and release you with a beautiful release.” In other words, ‘if you are dissatisfied with my humble means and lifestyle, then you are free to leave it. You do not belong to me and mine.’
When women demand more of what men are already providing, and become dissatisfied with the material simplicity that best suits their divinely assigned spiritual mission, then they do not rise into participation in the domain of men; they fall … and fail.
A desire for the goods of this world does not only enervate men, as they ease into indolence and cowardice, but it also weakens women, who no longer see the protection of the wombs and the virtue of the next generation as their primary concern. Most of the Muslim world, in fact, has lapsed into this muddled middle ground in which the men are no longer real men and the women are no longer real women. We shall give the Prophet the final word on this: From Ibni ‘Abbas, who said that the Messenger of GOD (may AL-LAH bless him and give him peace) cursed women who resembled men and men who resembled women. (Jami’it-Tirmidhi, Book 43, Hadith 56).
Download the PDF version for free at Ideas Inspired by the Qur’ān – Mont Redmond complete version, or purchase a hard copy at Ideas Inspired by the Qur’an: Redmond, Mont: 9781738842506: Books – Amazo
