'Men are Mean'

I have a lot of other things to talk about, but what happened today in my Parenting for Muslims class warrants a post now rather than later. My professor was talking about the way in which modern psychology differs from Islam. She says that modern psychology says that letting out your anger is healthier mentally, but that Islam says suppressing your anger is better. She then went on to give her own personal example of how suppressing your anger results in good rather than bad. Her example was as follows:

A while ago, her sister-in-law decided to help her husband find a second wife. The sister-in-law had apparently decided that our prof wasn't a good enough wife and that the husband deserved another, better one. Needless to say, our professor was mad about this. And because they're family, she knew that she would have to see her sister-in-law at some point. So she did the martyr-like thing, and spent the next few weeks convincing herself not to be angry and to control herself when they finally did meet. So, as expected, they eventually got together for a family event, and when our prof and her sister-in-law were left alone together the sister-in-law began saying terrible things to our prof, telling her all about the beautiful women they were looking at for her (our prof's) husband to marry, and when our professor controlled herself the sister-in-law just got more abusive. Our professor said nothing. And eventually, the whole thing blew over and our professor's husband did not, in fact, take a second wife. So the moral of the story is, keep your temper. It's the Islamic thing to do.

What surprised the class was that her anger was directed at her sister-in-law rather than her husband. We asked her "So your husband agreed to take a second wife?" and she said "yes, but he didn't." We said "That's horrible!" and she replied "Men are mean. That's why there is paradise for mothers. Men are always mean. If they get the chance, they will all take second wives."

Great lesson for the future wives in the class. It's good to know the genders are communicating so well. Ha.