marriage. Man is permitted to have such relations only with his
lawful wife. Even here, he is warned against making pleasure his
goal. He is advised to keep in mind that he is helping to bring into
existence a responsible rational being. For years, he will have to
devote himself to the task of bringing up and educating his son or
daughter so that he or she eventually becomes a useful member of
the society. If it is not possible for him to give his child a fair start in
life, he should not have begotten him. The Qur'an seeks to instil a
sense of responsibility into the minds of both partners engaged in
an activity which will lead to the production of a new being. They
are admonished to look beyond the immediate pleasure and realise
the responsibility they are undertaking. Pleasure is permissible, but
it is wrong to become a slave to it. The Qur'an tells man that he can
and should control his sex drive and attend to it moderately,
thinking seriously of the duties that will devolve on him in
consequence of it.
V. ChastityConsistent with this view, the Qur'an lays particular stress on
chastity. It is regarded as a cardinal virtue and as such helps forward
the moral and mental progress of man. Chastity is essential for
moral purity and mental health. The Freudian theory of sex has,
rightly or wrongly, encouraged men to think that sexual abstinence
is harmful to mental health. It is supposed to be a fruitful cause of
neurotic troubles. Those who hold this view are doing an injustice to
Freud. He himself did not defend licentiousness. It is not sexual
abstinence but repressed sexuality that produces neurotic disorders.
This is what Freud actually taught. Some medical men who have
only superficial knowledge of the psychoanalytic doctrine, actually
advise their neurotic patients to overcome their sexual inhibitions
and let themselves "go": no wonder that the patients sometimes get
worse instead of getting better. Because of a constitutional bias the
neurotics are obsessed with sex and are also prone to repression.
Sexual abstinence does no appreciable harm to normal men. Rather,
abstinence is conducive to mental health.
What a man is to do if circumstances do not permit him to
marry? The Qur'an advises him to guard his chastity and to abstain
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