Hi charmed shiva,

Very nice article and supporting for woman and actually you can feel what a girl or a woman is feeling , its not always what the man wants .

Thank you

Dear

I read your article . Nice one and supporting women and respecting women.I have been reading about marriage and rights of man and woman , and feeling disturbed by articles. I am not yet married. But i dont intend to insha Allah I hope in future also I am not married because after marriage a husband will always use you for sexual needs only . Scary, I wouldnt want to get married thinking that in islam on the first night between a man and his wife he wants to explore her body and have sexual relations and they are as if strangers dont know each other yet but everything is permissbile in marriage. How come. Not good very degrading.

Thank you May Allah Protect us all

In reading your concerns about the ability of male scholars to appreciate the experience of women, I was reminded of the same debate going on in the US, during my lifetime. When I was born, and I *think* I am probably older than most of the readers of this site, there was no such civil crime as “marital rape.” A wife did not have the legal right to say no to her husband, and the husbands had no figure even approaching the status of Muhammad sallalahu alayhe wasallaam telling them to see to it that their wife also has a good time. If anyone had tried to say such a thing, the Christian and medical communities would have been up in arms, because waaay back then, only aberrant women were supposed to enjoy sex beyond the paired goals of pleasing their husband and having a baby.

That said, it was also considered the pinnacle of crudeness for a man to “force his attentions” on his wife, but the penalty for his behavior if it had become known would have been social ostracism, not jail time.

This is not, as I understand it, an Islamic perspective. But Islam has also never debated whether women have souls as have both Judaism and Christianity, and that means that muslimahs start from a much better place than women in other contexts.

So I say this to assure you that you are not the first person to have these questions. In fact, in the last couple of centuries, it has only been the slowly rising tide of women asking these very questions that have led to things like women being allowed to vote, own property in their own name even if married, and so on.

And while you may not self identify as a feminist, you have asked the most basic feminist question, one that seeks for the naturally different perspectives of women (a concept that I believe Islam does endorse) to be allowed into public discourse.

Allah knows best,and JAK for your time.

Jackie,

What exactly do you constitute as an inconsiderate or abusive husband? Do you think it is demanding “all his rights expecting them to be fulfilled anytime” while “never ask or think if the wife needs/wants the same”? Is that what constitutes abuse? Because later you say, “‘Marital Rape is Non-Consensual sex between spouses’ where one spouse is coerced into unwanted sex. They may say ‘yes’ but only because of pressure and frustration, fear etc. but they actually want to say ‘no/stop’.”

Here’s the problem: In fact, according to Muslim scholars, it IS the right of a man to demand sex at nearly any time, and it IS haram for women to refuse that sex, even if she is busy with something such as cooking, even if she is riding a camel, even if she is feeling sad, even if she feels no sexual desire at all, even if she is mad at the husband, etc. etc. She is viewed as cursed by angels, God’s creatures, by God Himself, for not fulfilling the sexual request of her husband on-demand, whereas a woman is not granted this right, nor is she granted the right of restricting her husband’s autonomy in other areas, thus bringing into contest your notion of what is “inconsiderate” for what “the wife needs/wants the same”. Viewing a woman as cursed for not being sexually obedience is tantamount of psychological coercion. It is indeed conducive of the scenario you described: “‘Marital Rape is Non-Consensual sex between spouses’ where one spouse is coerced into unwanted sex. They may say ‘yes’ but only because of pressure and frustration, fear etc. but they actually want to say ‘no/stop’.”

I don’t know which texts you’ve been reading and which scholars or apologists you’ve been listening to, but this statement sounds really familiar to the ‘rights’ granted to men in marriage: “My husband made me feel like he bought a right to use my body andif I said no then I was a disobeying and disrespectful wife if I did not allow him access to it for whatever reason.” If you read the quote in the OP from al-Subki, it speaks to this quite succinctly. The OP never once suggested that a marital contract under Islam doesn’t grant a man the right to a woman’s body on-demand, to and extent in exchange for finances. The fact of the matter is the the Islamic marital contract condones this – you are to be sexually observant of his sexual demands, (as well as observant of several other demands), and in return you receive financial support/a safe house/child-support. It’s much like being a ward-slave for a slave-master, if you ask me. But what can you say, if that’s the Prophet’s way and thus God’s best example for us?

So I am curious as to what exactly you mean by “understanding of my Islamic rights”. Exactly which Islamic rights, and how, by whom, from where did you become aware of them?