MARRIAGE IN ISLAM

Social Contract & Sacred Bond

NATURE demands that men and women lead their lives together. The ideal way of leading such a life according to the Shariah (Islamic Law), is within the bonds of marriage. In Islam, marriage is both a social contract entered into by mutual consent of the bride and groom, and a sacred bond to which great religious and social importance is attached. As an institution, it is a cohesive force in society, and worth protecting and preserving for that reason. To that end, detailed injunctions have been prescribed to maintain its stability and promote its betterment.

However, in the knowledge that an excess of legal constraints can lead to rebellion, such injunctions have been kept to a realistic minimum and have been formulated to be consistent with normal human capabilities. Moreover, their enforcement is less relied upon than the religious conditioning of the individual to ensure the maintenance of high ethical standards and appropriate conduct in marital affairs and family life. The state of marriage not only lays the foundations for family life, but also provides a training ground for individuals to make a positive adjustment to society. When a man and woman prove to be a good husband and wife, they will certainly prove to be good citizens in the broad spectrum of their social group. This has been aptly expressed in a Hadith:

“The best of you is one who is best for his family.”

The family being the preliminary unit for the training of human beings, its disintegration has an injurious effect on the society. Human beings must individually make a positive contribution, if collectively they are to form a good and just nation. If the family no longer exists, it is the whole of humanity which suffers. Once a man and a woman are bound together in the bonds of matrimony, they are expected to do their utmost, till the day they die to honour and uphold what the Quran calls their firm contract, or pledge. To this end, the full thrust of the Islamic law is levelled at preventing the occurrence of divorce; the laws it lays down in this regard exist primarily, therefore, as checks, not incentives. Islam regards marriage as an extremely desirable institution, hence its conception of marriage is the rule in life. Divorce is only an exception to that rule. According to a Hadith, the Prophet Muhammad said, “Marriage is one of my sunnah (way). One who does not follow it, does not belong to me.”