Abstract
The Islamic marriage contract highlights many complex issues of marriage and divorce in contemporary societies. While the contract’s underlying foundation of gender relations is patriarchal, the marriage contract could become the basis for legal transformation in Islamic legal theory regarding male-female relationships. By signing a standardized marriage contract with fixed stipulations, which is provided by many states today, many women are entering a marriage without many of the safeguards acknowledged in Islamic law, but not necessarily enforced by the state and not actually encouraged by the schools of law. Yet many women are unaware that they can enter a marriage contract on more favourable terms. As such, the contract could be used by Muslim and non-Muslim women as a means of protecting rights by including not only financial but also non-financial stipulations.
Nonetheless, the foundation of the marriage contract needs to be reassessed if traditional marriage is to remain relevant for Muslims. Wider recognition of women’s equal dignity within the Qur’ān should constitute the basis for her legal rights. Unless men and women are granted the same legal autonomy to engage in marriage contract negotiations to determine rights and responsibilities in the marriage, it is likely that alternative modes of religiously legitimate relationships, such as misyar, tourist marriage, and mut’a, temporary marriage, as well as illegitimate relationships, such as ezdevaj-e sefid, white marriages, will continue to increase, to the disadvantage of all parties.
Keywords
Islamic law, family law, Middle East, marriage contracts, women’s rights
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