‘Muslims getting married later in life’ says deputy minister

PETALING JAYA: Muslims in Ma­­laysia are marrying at a later age, mirroring a trend that is happening elsewhere.

The highest age group that got married last year was in the age bracket of between 25 and 29.

Most of those in the bracket were men, said Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Fuziah Salleh.

“Muslims are getting married slightly later in life.

“Before that, the highest age group used to be between 20 and 24,” she said.

(As comparison, data from the De­­partment of Statistics last year showed that the median marriage age for non-Muslim men was 30 while the median marriage age for non-Muslim women was 28.)

Fuziah believed many young Muslims wanted to have a stable career before tying the knot.

“If they get married in their late 20s or early 30s, it could be that their career is not as established and they are still climbing the corporate ladder.

“This could be one of the factors (for late marriage among Muslims),” Fuziah explained.

She said the first six months of marriage were also the hardest because couples were adjusting to one another.

As for pre-marriage courses for Muslims, which have been criticised by former DAP Socialist Youth committee member Dyana Sofya Mohd Daud, Fuziah said efforts were constantly being taken to improve its content.

She said the current pre-marriage modules under the Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim) had gone through four phases of improvements, including information on how newly-weds communicate with one another, stress conflict management, divorce procedures, health issues and financial management.

“However, it is inadequate to just depend on pre-marriage courses.

“The courses last about 13 hours and cannot cover too much.

“We have too look at it holistically,” Fuziah said.

On April 29, Dyana Sofya retweeted a video of an ustaz who, during a marriage course, said that women who “tak tutup aurat (did not cover up)” deserved to be sexually violated.

The ustaz, she claimed, “endorsed sexual abuse against women for the way they dressed”.

No one deserves to be sexually violated, even if they walk around naked in public, she wrote.

Many others, including Ketari assemblyman Young Syefura Othman, voiced their objection to the preacher’s remarks.

Fuziah said it was unfair to judge the success of a marriage on the pre-marriage modules.

“Sometimes you have to look at the personality and the trainer.

“They have different approaches,” she said.

“Some of them like to make jokes and try to make people happy, and maybe the content and message do not reach the target.”

She added that some couples only attended the course because they were required to do so.

“If they are forced to attend, how effective can it be?

“So, we have to look at the issue as a whole.”

The latest statistics from Jakim showed that 156,231 Muslim couples got married last year, compared to 151,105 in 2017.

There were 39,722 divorce cases last year, compared to 40,161 in 2017.