MALAYSIA - I was having dinner with my colleagues when one of them (a Malay man) asked; "So your fiance is a Chinese, has he been circumcised?".

I was stunned at the question. I mean, I am a practicing Moslem woman, so I don't do sex out of wedlock. How would I know if he has circumcised or not?

If he hasn't, he can do it at anytime to fulfil all the requirements so that we can get married. He can do it now if he like. Just go to the doctor, get it done, stay at home for several days and here he is, good to go again. Simple.

And also, both of us are no longer teenagers who are still exploring our anatomy. I am in my mid-20s and my fiance is in his early 30s. We are too old to have such a dreamy love conversation like school teenagers, when all the innocent stars and moons popping out of every word of their utterrances or when they go against the 'go-green' campaign by plucking all the flowers in the world to be attached to their speech.

My fiance and I don't discuss sex or love when we have conversation. We both are language teachers, so most of our conversation sounds so much like 'teacher-talk' and at some points, it evolves around linguistics. I am learning Cantonese and he's learning Malay, so we taught each other our languages. I know it sounds so odd that a couple talk about languages, but as I said, we are no longer school kids. Instead, we teach school kids.

But it strikes me with the thought: Is that the only thing that matters in an inter-racial marriage involving a Malay girl? I believe Malay children were brought up and their parents send them to religious classes to listen to their ustazs and ustazahs that 'marriage is about responsibility and not only sex'. But even after being brought up with that teaching, we still question about circumcision?

Why didn't anyone asked me if my fiance knows how to read Koran? If he performs the prayers 5 times a day or if he behaves well or if he respects my parents, or if he has stable income or anything more important than circumcision? I believe these questions are more important as they reflect whether he has been living with true teachings of Islam or not. My fiance was a born Moslem because his parents converted to Islam before they got married.

And despite being a Hong Kong citizen, he has adequate knowledge on the religion, up to a point, he was the one who told me that this or that is wrong in Islam.

I don't get it, we keep saying that marriage is not only about sex, and yet we keep questioning on whether the man has circumcised or not when it obviously related to sexual intercourse. What else would it related to if not that?

Why do people get married? I agree with Mrs Clark in 'Shall We Dance'. She said that people get married so that they get someone to be a witness to their lives. And I believe being in the sight of someone who loves you fulfil your natural course (fitrah) as a human being, that is to be visible and to feel that people are aware of your presence.
It's not just about sex. He can be circumcised or not, but it's good enough if he is aware of my presence and make me important to him. I mean, like what Mrs Clark said, there are 6 billion people on the planet, what does any one life means to anyone? It doesn't mean a thing, but it means something to our other half. Being meaningful to someone fulfil our humanity. That's why people get married; to tie themselves to each other and fulfil each other's humanity drives, not sex drives.

Of course sex is part of humanity drives too, but many people have sex without getting married. If sex is the only thing that matters, why would people put themselves into trouble and get married?

If we understand that marriage is about making someone happy and taking the burden and stress off the person we love and be a witness to their life, then sex won't be so much of an issue, as well as giving a reason why marriage institution still exists, despite of the widely spread practice of sex out of wedlock.

I was hoping that the Malays understand that Islam doesn't evolve around the Malay community and think deeply into things, because it's quite sickening to entertain questions on why I don't choose a Malay man to be my life partner. I mean, if Malay man can only think about circumcision, isn't my reason obvious?

akmalfairuz

This article is an excerpt from a blog entry in The Star Online, one of Malaysia's leading dailies.