Ladies, use this as a lesson. When you start ticking off all the worldly requirements like education, job, money, height etc instead of qualities like honesty, loving, friend, life partner, you tick off guys who possess all these worldly qualities and much more but do want to share them with a person whose eyes are on only our money or education. God forbid, if we were to lose any of these qualities, you wouldn't even give us the time of day. We are not impressed by women who are only impressed by our worldly qualities, rather we want to know, are you capable of being faithful to us if all of it is lost due to any circumstances?.
Your list of requirements, different as it might be compared to the rest, seems the most genuine and honest. It seems you are looking more for a life partner who you can share your life with than a business partner who can share his money with you. Ladies, use this as a lesson. When you start ticking off all the worldly requirements like education, job, money, height etc instead of qualities like honesty, loving, friend, life partner, you tick off guys who possess all these worldly qualities and much more but do want to share them with a person whose eyes are on only our money or education. God forbid, if we were to lose any of these qualities, you wouldn't even give us the time of day. We are not impressed by women who are only impressed by our worldly qualities, rather we want to know, are you capable of being faithful to us if all of it is lost due to any circumstances?.
how do you make sure your potential life partner has all these qualities before you get married? Dating is not the answer for many people esp. in the conservative families.
The truth is my list (and I'm sure for many other girls) would be completely different if we were to add things we desire in a potential husband. Love and honesty being at the top of course.
But lets come to the real world. That's how things happen in reality. You get a proposal and you need to analyze it in the light of whatever info is available. The list comprises of all the apparent qualities you would want ticked to want to marry someone... not the list of what would you want in your ideal life partner. Even in Islam we are allowed to look at these things including wealth as well as righteousness, even though we are advised to hold righteousness at the top most priority. You see, when you look at it that way - a righteous man/ woman who is afraid of Almighty Allah would be careful not to transgress the rights of his/her partner. Here you'll get everything from love to loyalty. But do we consider this today...? I don't think many do. We rather want assurances of their loyalty and truthfulness... and we also know people change colors like chameleons. And lets face it, you can't love someone on an empty stomach. We see countless such cases here on GS... an oh-so-perfect-love marriage gone bad. Thus we can only make the best of what we have. That is what everyone's trying to do. I am sure you two aren't the only non-shallow ones around. Most people here do have a general idea of what is important and what is only transitory.
And what you said goes both ways. Women also want to marry men who want to be with them not only for apparent traits but especially all the things you mentioned up there. We are not impressed by men who are only impressed by our physical beauty or other worldly traits, rather we want to know, are you capable of being honest and loyal to us for the rest of our lives. (Yes it's a generalization - all men and women are different and can want different things).
Muslim- absolute must
Pakistani-origin- yess!
education- atleast a bachelor's degree
height- taller than me
good job/ income- enough to support our family.
good family background (to assure he's shareef, good-natured etc. etc.)- since that is not a surety but yeh would find out if family's decent and all.
nice/loving mom and dad (would be saas sussar)- yes
you find him attractive in appearance- yes
possible family setup you'll be living in (single unit or joint or whatever)- preferably single but joint's ok too i guess.
Conservative/ moderate/ liberal (acc. to your preference i.e will have no problem with u working etc.) conservative to moderate.