It is, of course, likely that I will remarry.

I think about it sometimes. I am, after all, twenty-eight years old, not eighty-two. I do not think in decisive terms -- there is above all first the matter of the iddat. But I do consider, the very act of which I know is offensive to some.

I was cautioned that it is proper to wait at least a year after the death of a spouse. Nevermind a term of mourning lasting just over four months. Nevermind until the birth of a child. Just as those who find polygamy broadly and inherently offensive point out that it was a concession in a time of war and widespread widowhood, implying or sometimes directly stating that outside of those conditions it is at best distasteful, so too do those who find early remarriage offensive point out the same. Surely widows can care for themselves better now than then. Surely widows have better options now than then. Surely what is clearly improper had to be permitted -- given the different conditions of that time.

Although I am not clear on from where this view of early Muslims comes. Even in hardship were women so desperate that they gleefully attached themselves in marriage to any man who might provide a regular bite of bread? Not in the stories that I know.

Marriage is not primarily about being cared for. Or rather it is, but not in those terms. Be it a first marriage, a second, or beyond, the hope is the same: to love and to be loved, to care for and to be cared for, to find in marriage a place of inexplicable tenderness, comfort, and warmth. The wish for these does not abate because a spouse has died -- it intensifies for having been something known and lost.

I miss my husband. I miss being married to my husband. And I miss being married. These are three very different co-existing feelings. They are not bonded together. In any individual case a woman might feel one, two, or all three of these depending on her own personal circumstances. Being not bonded, it is entirely possible to act to assuage one without it being a reflection on the presence or strength of the others. This is where inexperience damages understanding. Because when a connection is assumed, as it commonly is, for one to sooth their sense of longing for marriage itself necessarily reflects upon their feelings towards the marriage they had and lost.

In truth, if one who had lost waited until they no longer felt the loss of the individual, so most all would wait until their own deaths. A year would be no more sufficient than a day. And some do. And they are not wrong. No more so than the woman who on the fourth month and eleventh day receives a suitor, and announces an intent.

Labels: marriage, personal