In the ethics texts, not all human souls are created equal. Even though all of God’s creation is equal, rationality distinguishes the human species as a whole from animals and vegetables. Human beings themselves are part of a gendered and intel- lectual/spiritual hierarchy in which some men stand above others and all men stand above all women on account of the superiority of their rational faculties.
The ethicists imagine the human nafs in normatively male terms. Specifically, they speak of the training of the nafs as it pertains to men’s lives. Training of the rational faculty allows a man to express the virtue of wisdom, which is composed of leadership qualities that he will enact in his role as the head of a domestic economy and a leader in his city (if not the ruler). Taming the irascible faculty is curbing anger and cultivating courage, which is marked by masculine zeal. The ethicists imagine the concupiscible faculty as possessed by women as well as men, because it is the faculty of corporeal functions. Because the ethicists think of women as distinguished from men on the ba- sis of their biological functions, they thought of women almost exclusively in terms of their bodies, and not their minds. Thus, the virtue coming from the concupiscible fac- ulty, continence, does not just contain feminine attributes, but is the main virtue that women can express. For men, balancing the concupiscible faculty involves expressing the right amount of desire for comforts such as food, clothing, and sexual intercourse. Too much expression of this faculty results in animalistic, and therefore unmanly acts, and too little leads to lethargy, which is also unmanly.
all three ethicists, this involves acting ethically in the world. For Tusi and Davani, this specifically means enacting justice either as a composite of the virtues or as a function of the faculty of wisdom. A man’s ethical acts with members of his household, his community and city, are a key means of achieving the goal ofsa‘adat (ultimate happi- ness) and khilafat (vicegerency) of God on earth. This identity of an ethical man that is tied to his broad social role is defined in terms of power, hierarchy of intellect and ethical comportment in the home, which I will discuss in the next chapter, and in ho- mosocial structures of court, civic, and community life, which I discuss in Chapter four.
Chapter 3
Ethics of Marriage and the Domestic Economy
Love has very little to do with marriage. In the akhlaq texts, Ghazali, Tusi, and Da- vani caution men from becoming emotionally blinded by love for their wives, who are prone to causing pain and destruction, as they explain the ethical order of the domestic economy and men and women’s roles in marriage. The ethicists imagine men using their virtues acquired fromtahdhib-i akhlaq to run the domestic economy like a state in which the husband is the governor and the wife is his deputy. The domestic economy, comprised of a married couple, their children, servants or slaves, and perhaps elderly parents, is a microcosm of the city or sovereignty in its form and administration.
In this chapter, I argue that the ethicists conceived of marriage as part of a do- mestic economy in which wives play instrumental roles in their husbands’ households; the household patriarchy reveals a serious metaphysical tension within theakhlaq texts. The metaphysical tension is characterized by the ethicists’ recognition of women’snafses
in conflict with first, their understanding that women are rationally deficient, and sec- ond, their understanding that women’s maternal functions dominate women’s essences. They believe that women and men are the same on a humanistic level. Just like men, women have nafs and are prone to humanistic impulses. However, women are unable to control the flaws of human nature, partly because their rational deficiencies are more intense than that of men, and partly because they are unaware of their own behavior. Accordingly, both beliefs, that women are rationally deficient and biologically limited,
are rooted in the view that women, in a broader chain of being, are less than men, the normative humans, but better than most animals. Simone de Beauvoir’s discussion of women’s immanence and men’s transcendence is relevant in relation to how the ethicists think of men as macro-scale custodians of the world and women as instruments working within their rule.1 Further, Luce Irigaray’s philosophical critique of women’s bodies as
containers, informs my understanding of the ethicists’ view of women’s maternal bodies as central to their instrumentality.2
According to the ethicists, behaving ethically does not come naturally to men, but unlike women, they have the natural capacity to do so. With regard to gender roles, what is ethical is the same as what is natural; the natural potential of the norma- tive male nafs allows him to achieve the ultimate ends of happiness and vicegerency. Women’s lack of capacity to change their natures determines their ethical status and the ethics of relations with them. For example, because women do not possess the natural capacity for leadership as men do—even though men must cultivate leadership—the ethicists hold that by nature, men lead and women are led. Women are wayward, jeal- ous, and unruly, but are indispensable if managed well.
The prominence of discussions on marriage in the ethics texts stems from the ethi- cists’ understanding of marriage as a key component to man’s potential ethical perfec- tion. In his capacity as the primary ethical subject, a man partially dispenses his ethical duties by heading the domestic economy. Ghazali states that marriage is integral to the
rah-i din and thus requires careful explanation so that it can be conducted ethically.3
He explains five benefits of marriage. First is the immense savab (spiritual reward)
1de Beauvoir, xxxv.
2Irigaray,An Ethics of Sexual Difference, 10. 3Ghazali, 302.
that comes from procreation.4 He mentions that there are blessings in increasing God’s
favorite creation and increasing the ummah of the Prophet. Providing for a wife and children is counted as a great act of charity and even better than committing oneself to a struggle for the sake of Islam. Further, children pray for one’s parents, long after one’s death.5 The second benefit is that it strengthens a man’s faith by providing a
legal avenue for sexual intercourse. In other words, it is the means through which the
quwwat-i shahwat is controlled. Thus, marriage is crucial to help balance a man’snafs. Third is affection and comfort one feels in a woman.6 Although the main framework of
marriage is management of the domestic economy, Ghazali (as well as Tusi and Davani) recognize that a man’s emotions are bound up in the marital relationship. As I discuss below, women can serve as either helpers or enemies because of their ability to inspire affection in a man. Fourth, is the instrumentality of the wife, who “gives leave” to the husband to pursue loftier goals.7 This was a benefit that Ghazali himself certainly
realized, since his wife raise the children during his years away, even though he put his wife and family under the care of his brother, Ahmad Ghazali. The final incentive to marry according to Ghazali is that one’s faith is fortified while being married and there is a lot of savab for dealing with the antics of wives.8 Managing them strengthen’s one’s faith.
Tusi and Davani agree that one should marry in order to procreate. As discussed in the previous chapter, both recognize the human soul’s carnal appetite needs to be controlled and balanced by human virtues. However, they disagree as to whether this is a reason to get married. Davani holds that marriage protects the soul from the sin of
4Ghazali, 302. 5Ghazali, 303. 6Ghazali, 305. 7Ghazali, 305-306. 8Ghazali, 306.
adultery.9 Tusi, on the other hand, states that apart from seeking children, the other
reason to marry is the “protection of property,” which underscores the wife’s role as a deputy to her husband’s estate.10 Tusi is adamant that control of the carnal appetite
should not be a reason to seek out a wife because prioritizes the numerous aspects of how to maintain a wife and ultimately make the most utilitarian use out of marriage.11
Of the three ethicists, he lays out the most detailed guidelines about daily management of the wife.
The sections on the domestic economy read like ethics manuals, or “how to” guides that advise men on criteria for choosing a wife who will remain instrumental in running her husband’s estate, how to live with her and manage her nafs, how to raise children, and also how to develop contingency plans in the event that the marriage is not working. Judith Butler’s conception of gender performance through scripts is a useful concept to understand how gender roles are created within marriage.12 The ethicists’ behavioral
advice for specific stages in courtship, marriage, raising children, and divorce serve as perforative scripts for men to enact with their wives, thereby creating an ideal ethical masculinity. The ethicists also prescribe ideal feminine roles for women, but only indi- rectly by speaking to men about what behaviors they should expect from women. The descriptions of virtuous and wayward women serve as ethical and unethical scripts of femininity. By making men aware of the scripts they can anticipate women to perform, the ethicists imagine men executing their roles as leaders of the domestic economy by ensuring their wives conform to these ideals.
The hierarchy in marriage is rooted in the principles of governance required in run-
9Davani, 188. 10Tusi, 215. 11Tusi, 215.
ning a state. In the ethical scheme of domestic order, only one leader of the household can reign. Men and women play their respective roles to maintain the overall happiness of the members of their household. In akhlaq, this means the marital relationship is based on a wife’s instrumentality and a man’s function to manage the wife in order to keep her occupied, happy, and therefore, productive. For Tusi and Davani, who model their treatises in large part after Greek ethics, this means following a system of eco- nomic administration in the management of the wife and household. Ghazali suggests to achieve this through displaying good behavior and comportment to the wife and es- tablishing moderation in all aspects of life, including household expenditures and time spent in worship or entertainment. This is reflected in his title for all household-related ethics, “adab-i nikah.”13 However, as I demonstrate in the following sections, for all
three ethicists, the notions of moderation (which carries over from balance as the key principle to actualize virtues from the nafs), and the husband’s proper administrative rule in maintaining the wife’s instrumentality (as a microcosm of state governance) define the ethical relationship between husband and wife.
The title of Tusi’s chapter on marriage, siyasat wa tadbir-i ahl, which is roughly translated as the politics and management of the wife and family, is particularly illus- trative of the political and economic model used in creating the marital bond.14 In
Persian, the word ahl means people, family, or kin. The ethicists also use the term with singular pronouns when discussing a woman, which means that the word can also mean wife. Davani’s equivalent section is simply entitled, siyasat-i ahl (governing the wife).15 Scholars of Persian philosophical texts have translated the term tadbir as it
appears in chapter headings in works of falsafa and akhlaq as economics, recognizing
13Ghazali, 301. 14Tusi, 215. 15Davani, 178.
the similarity in content with Greek philosophical treatises. For example, GM Wickens translates Tusi’s tadbir-i manzil simply as economics. But household management is a more accurate translation, which also reveals more about male and female roles in marriage and is more conceptually related to siyasat (governance) which connects the husband’s marital rule to the model of sovereign rule by a governor or prince.
By an unexpected, but appropriate coincidence, use of the term economics to de- scribe the household order harkens back to the early 20th century home economics curriculum. Home economics courses taught in United States middle schools and high schools covered interior design, cooking, cleaning, sewing, nutrition, child development and family planning. The notion that these are areas of economics shows how inti- mately connected the home, and therefore marriage, is to finances and management. The ethics of marriage is based upon an economic and political model, not just in terms of the allocation of funds, but also in terms of the patriarchal hierarchy in acts of household administration.
3.1
Ideal Husbands and Wives
The purpose of the institutions of marriage and the domestic economy is to pro- vide men with the opportunity to execute ethical behavior that fulfills the ultimate goals of happiness and vicegerency of God. That means one must find an ethical wife who helps fulfill these goals. The ethicists’ discussions of ideal wives demonstrate their understandings of women’s roles and natures. Even though the ethicists did not have concepts of gender as an identity marker, they communicate understandings of appro- priate gender roles as well as concepts ofmuruwwah (manhood) and natural character traits of women.
meet before marrying. Ghazali strongly emphasizes three prerequisites to marriage.16
The first is that a man must have a lawful means of earning a living before getting married unless he is on the verge of having illicit sex.17 Commenting on the corrup-
tion of the age in which he was living, he says people turn to unlawful or unethical ways to earn money or provide for their families. Second, he requires that men have a balanced nafs because families are full of inanities and one needs to have a good nature, kindness and patience to tolerate the amount of distress they cause.18 A man
is not allowed to leave or abandon his family. Therefore, “whoever cannot control his own nafs, it is better that he does not take charge of someone else’s nafs.”19 Ghazali understood husbands as taking charge over their wives’ nafses. For Ghazali, a truly ethical man understood marriage as becoming responsible for someone else’s nafs. By recognizing women’s nafses, Ghazali recognizes women’s humanity, but also sets up a marital paradigm in which a husband is responsible for a woman’s most fundamental aspect, her selfhood. As I show in the next section on husbands’ duties, a man should ensure that his wife stays ethical, prays routinely, keeps the fast, and remains free from sin. She cannot be trusted to fulfill her own religious duties. A husband is in charge of ordering his wife’snafs, thus a man’s ownnafs must be sound. Finally, a man needs to have the strength and resolve his wife’s distractions from the remembrance of God.20
This echoes the virtue of courage and its qualities of high-mindedness and greatness of soul, that arise from controlling the quwwat-i ghazabi21
16Tusi and Davani do not have similar sections on ideal circumstances before marriage, but assume that one is ready to marry and has property.
17Ghazali, 307. 18Ghazali, 308. 19Ghazali, 308. 20Ghazali 308.
In discussing the ideal wife’s traits, the ethicists continue to discuss male
The wife’s personality is essential in determining the nature of the marital relation- ship and how the household will be run. Ghazali, Tusi and Davani are highly concerned with marriage to theright woman, rather than just any woman, since a wife is meant to play a key instrumental role in a man’s life, namely to bear his children, and take care of the home so as to “give leave” to the husband to pursue lofty goals.22 They all warn
against the catastrophic combination of wealth and beauty that are unaccompanied with piety or intelligence.23
Through a careful discussion of how the Syrian Christian scholar Bar Hebraeus (d. 1286) adapts Ghazali’s discussion of the ideal wife from the Ihya into his Ethicon, Lev Weitz argues that the image of the ideal wife in the Ihya is compelling for bol- stering male piety the “general confessional milieu of the medieval Middle East.”24 He
states that “wifely piety in al-Ghazalis text has more to do with facilitating mens pious obligations than with womens own devotional practices.”25 Each of the characteristics
Ghazali outlines of the ideal wife ensure her instrumentality to her husband’s endeav- ors to live a pious life and the “proper ordering of household life.”26 The same is true
in the Kimiya and Tusi and Davani’s ethics. Weitz applies Karen King’s analysis of cultural texts that are intended for men but feature women in order to think “with women.”27 Elizabeth Clark also discusses how Christian Propaganda Literature from
the first three centuries of Christianity, featured women to “think with” them, or use them as examples of mentally deficient people to whom “the Christian message is both
22Ghazali, 305-306.
23Ghazali, 311. Tusi, 215-216. Davani, 189. 24Weitz, 204.
25Weitz, 210. 26Weitz, 222.
easily comprehended and reforming of morals.”28Women likewise appear in the akhlaq
texts to articulate ideas about men, which are, in this case, men’s dominance in mar- riage and the household order. However, as Weitz points out, even though such texts are for men, and ultimately about men, they also shape cultural expectations about women’s normative behavior, despite being “cultural fantasies.”29
Ghazali considers the virtue of being parsa (devout) as the foremost quality, since an “undevout woman will be treacherous with property, disturb the lordship of her hus- band, and perhaps betray him with her body.”30 The preservation of property, which
Tusi lists as an equal incentive to marry as procreation, is just as important as fidelity for Ghazali.31 The next significant quality in a wife is khulq-i niku (good disposition), which ensures she will be obedient, grateful, and kind.32 Third is jamal (beauty) “for it is the foundation for affection” between husband and wife.33 He explains that it is a