Often Islam associated with a lot of restrictive rules that mostly apply to women. Some even call it oppression. People see Muslim women covered from head to toe and think they are as conservative and restrictive as Amish, Jehovah Witnesses or other radical Christian groups.
At the same time there is another aspect about Muslim women, based on (in)famous harem of Turkish Sultans that is occasionally used as an inspiration for harems in porn movies.
So where is the truth in all that. In reality is in between these two extremes, both of which are actually true.
Since I have a number of Muslim friends, some of them have invited me to visit their place. When I visit unmarried guys, we hang out in their place just like we would with people from other places.
However, once I was invited by a married Muslim guy who had four kids. One might expect to be able to meet his wife and see his kids, but that is not what happened. He told me that per Islamic tradition a part of house where wife and kids live is off limits to anyone, but husband and we have to make do of the only room not used by them. It wasn't that the guy was inhospitable, far from it. It was just an Islamic tradition. Together with me there was another Muslim guest who had to abide by the same rules. I did not meet his wife or kids, but we still had good time as he showcased various things.
Back in the days I did not think too much of this experience. However, many years later I came back to this and decided to analyze this tradition and decipher the reasons for such approach. Connecting dots from several separate pieces of information got me to an interesting conclusion.
Muslims make their women cover their hair and keep parts of home where they live off limits to any visitor to prevent spousal infidelity and adultery. Most of the rules about women have this simple goal in mind. The less other men see someone's wife, the less likely they would want to sleep with her. That is why wife is kept in an area off limits to visitors. That is why when she is in public she is covered from head to toe. Some go even further by forbidding married women from going out without husband supervision.
Adultery and infidelity is a common problem in the Western world as well. A lot of marriages and relationships collapse because of infidelity. Reducing female attractiveness to strangers is one way of fixing it. The problem does need fixing and younger generations increasingly refuse to enter relationships and marriage because they do not want to repeat mistakes of those whose marriages have ended in a painful divorce.
However, there is one more thing that I have discerned from these rules. The word harem or haram actually means forbidden or off-limits. It is used for variety of things forbidden for different reasons.
Fundamentally every Muslim household function as famous harems of Turkish Sultans. The only difference is in size. Someone as powerful and influential as a ruler of the Ottoman empire can afford a huge palace for his wifes' together with eunuch servants and other fancy things. A more ordinary Muslim can only afford a designated off-limits room or several.
Rules for each are the same, husband is the only male who can enter and the whole place is serves as entertainment area for him. That is wifes are not expected to be modest when they are alone with husband, they expected to be sexy, entertain him and seduce him into fucking them. All that of course happens in the closed-off area away from curious prying eyes. I could not verify it myself as I had not opportunity, nor a talent for sneaking into closed off areas.
Of course, each household is different, not everyone has private orgies with their wifes, but such a possibility is not too farfetched.
Thus, approach when wifes are modest with people other than their husband and only allowed to be sexy when there are alone with their husband is fundamentally much more adequate arrangement that will lead towards greater relationship satisfaction. Why so? Imagine the opposite situation, that often happens in relationship in the West and Russia.
At home wife is lazy and takes this time to relax and do nothing. She wears old clothes as she is too afraid to damage expensive fancy dress she is saving up for some special occasion. Any husband is unlikely to find that attractive and they do not. Instead, they look at their wife and think why they were so stupid to marry in the first place. It's a wife's problem but most of them do not think this way and instead blame their husband for being impotent.
Then when she goes out for that special occasion, she puts her best dress, does make up and so on. In doing so she often takes longer than necessary, making her husband worry if they will be late and so on. After all this stress with being late he no longer cares if she looks good or not.
However, once they finally arrive at the special occasions, there lots of strangers can see his wife at her best without seeing how much trouble she caused her husband to get this pretty. Some of them might like her so much, they will try to cheat with her.
All in all, a typical western approach I outlined above is a self-defeating way of life, that will only cause more divorces and unhappy marriages. Sure, not everyone takes it as far as that but there is a clear tendency for self-defeating behavior that leads to divorce and unhappiness. If wife wants to be loved by a husband, she has to work hard to look good at home in his presence, not on special occasions when she meets outsiders. It she does not do that her husband will lose interest, and it will end up sad.
Sure, not every Muslim would be able to elaborate on all that as much as I did, must just do it because God says so. However, it does work, and their marriages are more stable and happier than those in the West. It's not that divorce is forbidden in Islam, it's not. However, few ever go this way.
Thus, we should study Muslim experience and use it to improve our own relationships between genders. We do not have to become Muslims ourselves and follow other rules of Islam, some of which are rather useless. Instead, we should create a composite system that will work in our secular society.
For example, it would make sense that only women in a marriage or in a relationship would dress modestly in public. Single women still need to look attractive to interest potential partner. We do not want to go path or arranged marriages, negotiated between families as this have plenty of issues on its own, for example, differences in tastes between parents and children.
However, the rest is possible for any couple to do on their own volution. Every wife can and should dress modestly in public, but at the same time wear sexiest lingerie at home for her husband. Doing this will make relationship more stable and satisfying for both sides.
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