The
skewed male-female ratio
MAY
25, 2019
In our culture one is not
supposed to question any statement coming from those who claim to be religious
scholars. The reference here is to preachers in our mosques, of whom most are not
qualified for their jobs. Some of them become rich and powerful by constructing
mosques on other people’s properties, secure in the knowledge that the owners
would not dare challenge them. It is due to illiterate and ignorant people in
the position that some people are reluctant to allow their daughters to go to
school. Some preachers have even convinced their followers that immunising
children against polio will make them infertile and lead to a massive decline
in the number of Muslims in the world. No use telling them that for every 150
Muslims on earth there is only one Jew, yet it is the Jews who are dominating
the world.
I’ve often wished that my
father hadn’t spent a fortune on my education. If I hadn’t received beatings in
my formative years, I would probably have ended up being a brainwashed idiot
like many men in Pakistan. Without having read a single book, apart from the
ones required in school, I’d have been just like them. Almost every man I meet
is like that preacher who has never asked his listeners to read books on
subjects other than religion. That is why many men believe that women wearing
jeans cause earthquakes.
Fortunately, I’ve a few
friends and relatives with whom I can hold discussions and challenge their
beliefs without fear of being ostracised for the rest of my life. The situation
was very different 20 years ago when you rarely came across an extremist, and
no one took preachers seriously.
Another belief that the brainwashed ones share is that the
number of women is so much more than the number of men that there are thousands
of unmarried Muslim women who are at a risk of developing loose morals. So when
my preacher urged his listeners last Friday to marry at least two women in
their lifetime to save the excessive number of unmarried women from turning to
the oldest profession in the world to survive, I remained seated and said
nothing. I did that because I didn’t want to get lynched. The preacher and his
audience would have reacted violently if I had told him that the number of men
in Pakistan, and in most Muslim countries, is more than the number of women.
The
male-female ratio in Pakistan is 106 men for 100 women. This means that should
all Pakistnai men wish to get married more than 6 million of them will never
find a Pakistani woman to marry. They will have to try elsewhere. Some Chinese
men have done the same recently; marrying Pakistani women because the situation
is no different in China. But if every other Pakistani suddenly decides to do
what the cleric has advised – having more than one wife – it will result in
chaos. We’ll see millions of unmarried Pakistani males cursing the day they
were born.
If
it is any consolation, we are better off than many other countries in the
region. India has 108 males for 100 females, while in Saudi Arabia the ratio is
132 males for 100 females. Kuwait has a 135 to 100 ratio). There will be
anarchy in these and other Muslim countries where the ratio is even
higher-countries like Bahrain with 161, Oman with 184, UAE with 272 and Qatar
with 306. These states must do something immediately to increase their female
population to avoid the spectacle of men killing one another to get married. It
is also strange that the sex ratio is so high in Muslim countries. In Maldives
the ratio is 130 to 100. Could it be that Muslim women prefer to get abortions
so that they don’t give birth to girls? We know this is happening in India, and
perhaps in China as well.
Whatever
the reason, I hope I’ve been able to persuade those of my male readers who are
thinking of taking second wives to refrain from doing so. We already have
enough problems of our own.
The writer is a freelancer
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