Marriages

[kmaherali]

16 Relationship Secrets to Steal From Couples Married for 50+ Years

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http://www.msn.com/en-ca/lifestyle/life ... ailsignout

16 Relationship Secrets to Steal From Couples Married for 50+ Years

Fifty years ago, marriage looked pretty different: The average age for saying "I Do" was lower (20 for women and 23 for men in 1965, versus 27 and 30 today) and the percentage of people getting hitched was higher (70% to our 50%). But the fact that sharing a life together is both challenging and rewarding hasn't changed. Here's how a few still-going-strong couples have made their love last.

[kmaherali]

The Happiest Couples Do These 7 Things Every Day

Every couple is different. While your perfect date night out might be a raucous night on the town, that could be another Netflix-loving couple's nightmare. But no matter your personal tastes and past times, our experts say that the happiest couples do these things every day.

Slide show:

http://www.msn.com/en-ca/lifestyle/life ... li=AAggNb9

6 Women on What Saved Their Marriage From Divorce

Marriage is a beautiful thing — but it can also be a challenging experience — one that requires work and commitment. To save you from the minor (and major) pitfalls of it all as you embark on the most amazing journey of your lives, six women share their stories of how they turned their marriages around when all seemed lost.

Slide show:

http://www.msn.com/en-ca/lifestyle/fami ... li=AAggNb9

[kmaherali]

28 Things Marriage Therapists Want You to Know

Couples enter marriage with high expectations, but the pressures of careers, family, and even technology can derail the best intentions and send them seeking help. Here, top marriage therapists from across the U.S. offer suggestions for getting the most out of counseling sessions.

Slide show:
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/lifestyle/life ... ailsignout

[kmaherali]

15 Things A Divorce Lawyer Wants All Married People To Know

Marriages go up and down with the economy

Tough times makes for tough relationships, says Robert J. Lewis, Esq., a divorce lawyer at Davidoff Hutcher & Citron LLP, in New York City. 'Finances are one of the main stresses on a relationship and I saw a lot of fights over money during the recession of 2008,' he explains. But paradoxically this may offer some protection to fragile relationships as divorce rates declined slightly in the America during the Great Recession of the last decade. Why? It's simple, Lewis says: Two households are always more expensive than one and in tough times practically trumps love. Pay attention to these secret signs your marriage could be headed for divorce.

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http://www.msn.com/en-ca/lifestyle/life ... b9#image=1

[kmaherali]

10 Marriage Rules that No Longer Apply

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http://www.msn.com/en-ca/lifestyle/life ... ut#image=1

[kmaherali]

10 Amazing Things That Happen After Divorce That No One Tells You About

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http://www.msn.com/en-ca/lifestyle/rela ... hp#image=1

Divorce can indeed be a sh*tshow, but there is also good that comes from it. Sometimes there is so much good, that you can't help but call divorce a blessing . . . even when there is heartache to account for.

Sometimes, people don't want to say how good divorce can be for fear of sounding harsh or belittling to marriage. The fact is, not every marriage is meant to have a fairytale ending. Sometimes, they are meant to be "necessary endings" in order to flesh out bright and beautiful beginnings.

[kmaherali]

Unhappily ever after

For multi-national families, breaking up can lead to tragedy

Parents can face lengthy court battles, or become permanently estranged from their children

International
Feb 15th 2017

KATE BAGGOTT and her two children live in a tiny converted attic in a village near Frankfurt. Ms Baggott, who is Canadian, has a temporary residence permit and cannot work or receive benefits. The trio arrived in Germany in October, after a Canadian court order gave them a day’s notice to get on the plane. Ms Baggott’s ex-husband, a Canadian living in Germany, had revoked his permission for the children’s move to Canada after they had been there nearly a year, alleging “parental child abduction”. A German court has given Ms Baggott full custody, but she must stay until an appeal is over.

Such ordeals are becoming more common as the number of multi-national and footloose families grows. Across the European Union, for example, one in seven births is to a woman who is a foreign citizen. In London, a whopping two-thirds of newborns in 2015 had at least one parent who was born abroad. In Denmark, Spain and Sweden more than a tenth of divorces end marriages in which at least one partner is a non-citizen.

The first question in a cross-border break-up is which country’s laws apply. When lots of money is at stake there is an incentive to “forum-shop”. Some jurisdictions are friendlier to the richer partner. Germany and Sweden exclude assets owned before the marriage from any settlement. Ongoing financial support of one partner by the other is rare in France and Texas—and ruled out in another American state, Georgia, if the spouse seeking support was adulterous.

Under English law, by contrast, family fortunes are generally split evenly, including anything owned before the marriage. Prenuptial agreements, especially if drawn up by a lawyer representing both spouses, are often ignored. The wife of a Russian oligarch or a Malaysian tycoon can file for divorce in London if she can persuade a judge that she has sufficient links to England. A judge, says David Hodson, a family lawyer in London, might be presented with a list of supporting items, which may be as trivial as which sports team the husband roots for, or where the family poodle gets a trim.

Across the European Union, until recently the rule has been that the courts of the country in which divorce papers are filed first gets to hear the case. Couples often rushed to file rather than attempting to fix marital problems. But in some countries that is changing: last year Estonia became the 17th EU country since 2010 to sign an agreement known as Rome III that specifies how to decide which country’s law applies (usually the couple’s most recent country of residence, unless they agree otherwise). Though the deal brings welcome clarity, one downside is that courts in one country may have to apply another country’s unfamiliar laws. And one spouse may be tricked or bullied into agreeing to a divorce in the country that best suits the other.

The bitterest battles, though, are about children, not money. Approaches to custody vary wildly from place to place. Getting children back if an ex-partner has taken them abroad can be impossible. And when a cross-border marriage ends one partner’s right to stay in the country where the couple lived may end too, if it depended on the other’s nationality or visa.

Treasures of the heart
Under the Hague Abduction Convention, a treaty signed by 95 countries, decisions about custody and relocation fall to courts in the child’s country of “habitual residence”. If one parent takes a child abroad without the other’s consent or a court order, that counts as child abduction. The destination country must arrange the child’s return.

But plenty of countries have not signed, including Egypt, India and Nigeria. They can be havens for abducting parents. Around 1,800 children are abducted from EU countries each year. More than 600 were taken from America in 2015; about 500 abductions are reported to American authorities each year the other way round.

Some countries, including Australia and New Zealand, often regard themselves as a child’s “habitual residence” from the moment the child arrives. The EU sets the threshold at three months. America differs from state to state: six months’ residence is usually what counts. GlobalARRK, a British charity that helps parents like Ms Baggott, is campaigning for information on such rules to be included among the documents issued to families for their move abroad. It also lobbies for a standard threshold of one year for habitual residence and advises parents to sign a pre-move contract stating that the child can go home at any time. Though such contracts are not watertight, they would at least alert parents to the issue.

Britain is comparatively helpful to foreign parents who seek a child’s return: it provides help with legal advice and translation. But plenty of countries do little or nothing. Family judges in many places favour their compatriots, though they may dress up their decisions as being in the child’s interests. Parents who can no longer pay their way through foreign courts may never see their children again.

Some parents do not realise they are committing a crime when they abscond with the children, says Alison Shalaby of Reunite, a British charity that supports families involved in cross-border custody disputes. Even the authorities may not know the law. Michael, whose former partner took their children from Britain to France in 2015, was told by police that no crime had been committed. After he arranged for Reunite to brief them, it took more than five months to get a French court order for the children’s return.

Other countries are slower still, often because there are no designated judges familiar with international laws. Over a third of abductions from America to Brazil, for example, drag on for at least 18 months. When a case is eventually heard the children may be well settled, and the judge reluctant to order their return.

A renewed push is under way to cut the number of child abductions, and to resolve cases quickly. The EU is considering setting an 18-week deadline for the completion of all return proceedings and making the process cheaper by abolishing various court fees. And more countries are signing up to the Hague Convention: Pakistan, where about 40 to 50 British children are taken each year, will sign next month. India, one of the main destinations for abducting parents, recently launched a public consultation on whether to sign up too.

But the convention has a big flaw: it makes no mention of domestic violence. Many of the parents it classifies as abductors are women fleeing abusive partners. One eastern European woman who moved to Britain shortly before giving birth and fled her violent fiancé four months later, says she was turned away by women’s shelters and denied benefits because she had lived in Britain for such a short time. For the past year she has lived off friends’ charity. The police have taken her passport to stop her leaving Britain with the baby. Another European woman, living in New Zealand, says she fears being deported without her toddlers when her visa expires in a few months. She fled domestic abuse with the children and a bag of clothes in December, and has been moving from one friend’s house to another ever since.

Child abduction is often a desperate parent’s move of last resort, says GlobalARRK’s founder, Roz Osborne. One parent, who has residence rights, may have been granted sole or joint custody, meaning the children cannot be taken abroad without permission. But the other parent may have entered on a spousal visa which lapses when the marriage ends. Even if permission to remain is granted, it may be without the right to work or receive state benefits. In such cases, the decision of a family court guaranteeing visiting rights or joint custody can be close to meaningless.

Britain’s departure from the EU could mean many more divorcing parents find themselves in this desperate state. Around 3.3m citizens of other EU countries live in Britain, and 1.2m Britons have moved in the opposite direction; so far it is unclear whether they will continue to have the right to stay put and work. And in America, says Jeremy Morley, a lawyer in New York who specialises in international family law, immigration issues are increasingly used as weapons in child-custody cases. Judges in family courts, he says, often pay little attention to immigration issues when ruling on custody, because they know few people are deported solely because their visas have expired. But under Donald Trump, that may change.

Many parents have no idea what they sign up for when they agree to follow a spouse abroad, says Ms Osborne. They may mistakenly believe that if things do not work out, they can simply bring the children back home. Ms Baggott’s move to Germany was supposed to be a five-year adventure, the duration of her husband’s work visa. Instead, she says, she endured “a decade of hell”.

http://www.economist.com/news/internati ... n/NA/email

[kmaherali]

India bans a Muslim practice of instant divorce
Muslim women will applaud

India’s supreme court ruled on August 22nd to outlaw “triple talaq”, a tradition whereby Muslim men could annul a marriage simply by saying “I divorce you” three times (an Indian Muslim bride is pictured). Most Muslim-majority countries long ago abandoned the practice for being sexist or questionable under religious law. But politicians in Hindu-majority India had kept it going to win conservative Muslim votes. Hindu nationalists hailed the ruling as a blow to the “appeasement” of minorities. Muslim liberals and women’s groups that have long opposed the practice also welcomed the decision. Yet the ruling was narrow: three judges to two. Constitutional experts said their legal reasoning fell short of upholding personal rights over religious laws. The judgment did not ban other forms of Muslim divorce that favour men, only the instant kind.

https://www.economist.com/news/asia/217 ... lydispatch

[kmaherali]

When Life Asks for Everything

Excerpt:

For example, on Tuesday one of America’s leading marriage researchers, Eli J. Finkel, publishes an important book called “The All-or-Nothing Marriage.” It’s quite a good book, full of interesting insights on contemporary marriage. But it conceives marriage completely within the Maslow frame.

In this conception, a marriage exists to support the individual self-actualization of each of the partners. In a marriage, the psychologist Otto Rank wrote, “one individual is helping the other to develop and grow, without infringing too much on the other’s personality.” You should choose the spouse who will help you elicit the best version of yourself. Spouses coach each other as each seeks to realize his or her most authentic self.

“Increasingly,” Finkel writes, “Americans view this definition as a crucial component of the marital relationship.”

Now I confess, this strikes me as a cold and detached conception of marriage. If you go into marriage seeking self-actualization, you will always feel frustrated because marriage, and especially parenting, will constantly be dragging you away from the goals of self.

In the Four Happiness frame, by contrast, marriage can be a school in joy. You might go into marriage in a fit of passion, but, if all works out, pretty soon you’re chopping vegetables side by side in the kitchen, chasing a naked toddler as he careens giddily down the hall after bath -time, staying up nights anxiously waiting for your absent teenager, and every once in a while looking out over a picnic table at the whole crew on some summer evening, feeling a wave of gratitude sweep over you, and experiencing a joy that is greater than anything you could feel as a “self.”

And it all happens precisely because the self melded into a single unit called the marriage. Your identity changed. The distinction between giving and receiving, altruism and selfishness faded away because in giving to the unit you are giving to a piece of yourself.

More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/19/opin ... d=45305309

[kmaherali]

Islam, marriage and the law
How best to help women caught between different kinds of family law

No easy answer to the conundrums posed by religious marital law

AS IS reported by The Economist in this week’s print edition, almost everybody can agree that there are acute difficulties at the interface between Islamic family law and the liberal West. Especially for married Muslim women, living in a kind of limbo between the Islamic world and the secular world can be exceptionally tough. So far, so much consensus. What people don’t agree on, however, is how to improve this situation.
Start with England, which presents an extreme case of the pathologies facing Muslim minorities in the West. In no other country have so many “sharia councils” sprung up to adjudicate the affairs of Muslim people, especially women who are trapped in unhappy marriages and want a religious divorce. (Some say these councils should be regulated, others want them abolished.) And in no other country is it so common for young Muslim couples to have religious-only marriages or nikahs which are never registered with the state, so that in the event of a breakdown the financially vulnerable partner, usually female, has few entitlements.

Aina Khan, a London-based lawyer who specialises in family law, is prime mover of a campaign called “Register Our Marriage”, which aspires both to change the law and to make Muslims, especially women, more conscious of the dire consequences of a religious-only rite.

The campaign wants to close the gap between faith-based and civil wedding ceremonies by making it easy, virtually automatic and indeed compulsory for religious nuptials to be registered in the eyes of the state. In other words, all faiths would acquire the status (and the corresponding obligations) long enjoyed by the Anglicans, Jews and Quakers.

As the website puts it:

This Petition is to reform outdated English marriage law, which is no longer “fit for purpose.” We need to reform the Marriage Act 1949 as it is 70 years out of date. Make it compulsory for every faith to register marriages, not just three faiths….100,000s have no legal rights in an unregistered religious marriage and this figure is rising yearly.

A different view is taken by Sadikur Rahman, a London solicitor who is also a supporter of the National Secular Society. He agrees that there is an anomaly in treating Anglicans, Jews and Quakers differently from other faiths. But he wrote in a recent article that according civil status to all Muslim marriages would be “highly problematic” for several reasons. As he argues:

The question of “what is a Muslim marriage” is a vexed one. Muslim marriage encompasses a range of unions which would not be acceptable on the basis that they may be discriminatory or open to abuse. For example polygamous marriages, temporary marriages amongst Shia Muslims and nowadays young Muslims of all sects…[and] marriages between adults and children.

On the other hand, Mr Rahman adds:

If we start debating what is and is not a Muslim marriage and go down the route of...siding with Islamic reformers in not accepting the above types as Muslim marriages at all, then the state would be entering into a religious theological debate which is no position for a secular state to be in. It is not for the state to start defining what is and is not a Muslim marriage.

The best approach, in Mr Rahman’s view, is for the state to be blind to all forms of marriage except the civil sort. That would involve stripping the Anglican, Jewish and Quaker faiths of their current privileged status and insisting that adherents of those faiths must register their nuptials with the state as a separate act if they want any legal status for their union.

Mr Rahman’s view highlights one of the paradoxes of rigorous secularism. If secularism is understood to mean that the state does not interfere in theological matters, then this can leave a large social space in which religions and sub-cultures can act according to their own traditions, which may be pretty conservative.

The Netherlands has, on the face of the things, an approach that is quite secularist but also addresses the problems identified by Ms Khan that occur when civil and religious nuptials drift apart. Dutch law says that a religious wedding cannot take place unless a civil union has also been contracted. But the country still has the problem of “marital captivity”—in other words, the dire situation of women whose husbands will not give them a religious divorce.

Kathalijna Buitenweg, a prominent Green member of the Dutch parliament, is lobbying the government for a change in civil law that would make it easier and more routine for judges to compel reluctant husbands to release their wives from the religious bonds of a dead marriage.

Thanks to the efforts of Shirin Musa, a campaigner, keeping a woman in such “marital captivity” is notionally a criminal offence under Dutch law. But that provision is so draconian that it will hardly be used in practice. A few civil-law cases, including Ms Musa’s own personal case, have been pursued successfully against reluctant husbands. But if Ms Buitenweg gets her way, civil-law cases will become much easier.

But here is a paradox. By the lights of strict secularism, using civil law to bring about religious divorce is problematic. Since religious marriages do not exist in the eyes of a rigorously secular state, it makes no difference to the state whether or not they are terminated. But by the lights of common decency, some would say, a woman caught inside a traditionalist sub-culture who wants to restart her life does needs help and should get it.

https://www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus ... lydispatch

[kmaherali]

20 Rules for a Happy Marriage

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https://www.msn.com/en-ca/lifestyle/rel ... ut#image=1

[kmaherali]

For a Better Marriage, Act Like a Single Person

OLYMPIA, Wash. — Especially around Valentine’s Day, it’s easy to find advice about sustaining a successful marriage, with suggestions for “date nights” and romantic dinners for two.

But as we spend more and more of our lives outside marriage, it’s equally important to cultivate the skills of successful singlehood. And doing that doesn’t benefit just people who never marry. It can also make for more satisfying marriages.

More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/10/opin ... dline&te=1

[kmaherali]

A Quiet Revolution: More Women Seek Divorces in Conservative West Africa

Frustrated by their husbands’ inability to earn a living, and in a society where basic views on relationships have changed, women are asserting more control over their marriages.

Excerpt:

For centuries, women have been expected to endure bad marriages in many conservative pockets of West Africa. Divorce happened, but most often the husbands were the ones casting off their partners. Tradition has bound women so tightly that spouses are sometimes chosen for babies in the womb.

“It’s the end of the world when a husband and wife don’t stay together,” said Ms. Amadou’s mother, Halima Amadou.

But here in Niger, a place where women have less education, lower living standards and less equality with men than just about anywhere else in the world, a quiet revolution is playing out.

Many women like Ms. Amadou come to this sidewalk court every month to push for a divorce, frustrated not only by their husbands’ inability to earn a living during a time of economic hardship, but also because their basic views on relationships have changed.

They want to choose whom and when to marry, not be pushed into marriages like so many generations of women before them. They demand respect and, better yet, love, speaking openly of wanting a healthy sex life. And when their husbands fall short, women are the ones driving this new culture of breakups.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/06/worl ... 3053090107

[swamidada_1]

Admin
Joined: 06 Jan 2003
Posts: 5610

I was not talking of Prophet David but Prophet Solomon who had 700 wives and 300 concubines which were also at that time considered as somewhat wives..

Last edited by Admin on 05 Oct 2018 08:37 pm, edited 1 time in total


I wander Prophets were allowed to have hundreds of wives plus concubines, Muslims are allowed 4 wives but BECHARA Khoja Bhai is confined to only one.
KIYA YEH KHULA TAZZAD NAHI HAI.

[kmaherali]

The 30 real reasons why couples end their marriage

Sometimes marriages work, and sometimes they don’t. There are many causes of divorce. And often, an accumulation of things will cause a marriage to break down. Here are some of the real reasons why couples get divorced, according to relationship experts.

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https://www.msn.com/en-ca/lifestyle/rel ... ut#image=1

[kmaherali]

Husband and wife married for 70 years die a day apart

A New York couple married for more than 70 years died just a day apart from one another.

Joan Sell Chapple, 87, died Sunday, and her husband, Warren Chapple, 93, died Monday.

Joan Chapple had suffered from Alzheimer's for years. She moved into a nursing home seven years ago after her Alzheimer’s progressively worsened, where her husband would visit her every day, the Times Union reported.

Every day for the last two years, Warren Chapple would drive 10 miles to feed his wife breakfast and sit with her, then return home. Hours later, he would make the 10-mile drive once more to feed his wife dinner, and sit with her for three hours until she went to bed.

Warren Chapple suffered from esophageal cancer, which progressively worsened toward the end of January. Jan. 28 was the last time he was able to visit his wife, who died Sunday at Van Rensselaer Manor.

Warren Chapple asked his son Marc about his wife’s condition after she had passed.

“She’s gone,” said Marc, as reported by the Times Union. “You can go now.”

Warren Chapple died on Monday, just a day after his wife passed.

Scientific studies have showed the “widowhood effect” is strongest three months after a person’s spouse dies — meaning couples can often feel stress or grief that causes them to get sick, and they can die.

According to the University of Michigan Health and Retirement Study, couples have a 66% greater chance of dying within three months of a spouse’s death. A number of factors can contribute to a couple’s death, but stress and grief can cause a spouse to literally “die of a broken heart.”

It’s unclear if the couple knowing about one another caused their deaths, but the couple’s family spoke of their love and undeniable connection.

"He lived for my mother," the Chapple’s son, Marc told the Times Union.

"He kept her alive with that love," Marc's wife, Pattie said.

For the last 34 years, the couple have called West Sand Lake home, according to the couple’s obituary.

Joan Chapple, who was born in Eaton Rapids, Mich., worked as a seamstress and homemaker. Her husband, born in Plattsburgh, was a Navy veteran and Mets fan. He worked as a service technician until he retired 30 years ago.

The couple also owned Chapple’s Woodworking and Doll Company, and operated the business together for years.

Together, Joan and Warren Chapple had two sons — and had a family that grew to include three grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Warren has a brother, Emerson Chapple, who is still alive, and the couple has several surviving nieces and nephews.

After seven decades of marriage, the couple gave new meaning to the vow “until death do us part.”

"They were always together," Pattie told Western Union of her parents-in-law. "They're still together."

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/hu ... ailsignout

[kmaherali]

LOVE IS PATIENT

Every successful relationship is successful for the same exact reasons

Hey, guess what? I got married two weeks ago. And like most people, I asked some of the older and wiser folks around me for a couple quick words of advice from their own marriages to make sure my wife and I didn’t shit the (same) bed. I think most newlyweds do this, especially after a few cocktails from the open bar they just paid way too much money for.

But, of course, not being satisfied with just a few wise words, I had to take it a step further.

See, I have access to hundreds of thousands of smart, amazing people through my site. So why not consult them? Why not ask them for their best relationship/marriage advice? Why not synthesize all of their wisdom and experience into something straightforward and immediately applicable to any relationship, no matter who you are?

Why not crowdsource THE ULTIMATE RELATIONSHIP GUIDE TO END ALL RELATIONSHIP GUIDES™ from the sea of smart and savvy partners and lovers here?

So, that’s what I did. I sent out the call the week before my wedding: anyone who has been married for 10+ years and is still happy in their relationship, what lessons would you pass down to others if you could? What is working for you and your partner? And if you’re divorced, what didn’t work previously?

The response was overwhelming. Almost 1,500 people replied, many of whom sent in responses measured in pages, not paragraphs. It took almost two weeks to comb through them all, but I did. And what I found stunned me…

They were incredibly repetitive.


That’s not an insult or anything. Actually, it’s kind of the opposite. These were all smart and well-spoken people from all walks of life, from all around the world, all with their own histories, tragedies, mistakes, and triumphs…

And yet they were all saying pretty much the same dozen things.

Which means that those dozen or so things must be pretty damn important… and more importantly, they work.

Here’s what they are:

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https://qz.com/884448/every-successful- ... t-reasons/

[kmaherali]

Why dowries persist in South Asia

Despite a surfeit of men and growing female empowerment, grooms still have more clout

The word for dowry in Bangladesh is an English one: “demand”. It is the price, in other words, that the groom’s family demands in order to admit the bride to their household. In theory, such transactions are illegal in both Bangladesh and India, and limited in value by law in Pakistan. The legislators who enacted these rules (in 1961 in the case of India) thought dowries would go the way of sati, the horrific practice in which Hindu widows were encouraged to throw themselves on their husband’s funeral pyre to show their devotion.

Economics militates against dowries, too. India has 37m more males than females, so it ought to be women, not men, who are paid to marry (if they wish to marry at all). Moreover, recent decades have seen a sharp rise in levels of female employment in Bangladesh and Pakistan, at least, undermining the notional justification for a dowry: to defray the cost of providing for the bride.

More...

https://www.economist.com/asia/2019/05/ ... south-asia

[kmaherali]

Strengthening Muslim marriages – with art

A Pakistani American artist is working to revive the Islamic tradition of decorated nikahnamas, or stylized marriage contracts. Nushmia Khan opened a nikahnama store in 2019, and has created illuminated contracts for couples around the world.

But Khan's project is about more than making beautiful objects couples can hang on their wall. Her designs aim to draw couples' attention to the writing of the actual contract, a space where couples can negotiate everything from money to location to the women's rights to education and work. Contractual stipulations are often discussed by Muslims as an important tool to protect women's interest in marriage.

Khan has seen a lot of Muslim couples sign their contract thoughtlessly, missing an opportunity to address potential marital problems. She hopes her work will make Muslim couples think about their marriage more intentionally.

Video at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... zQxKEVs-Oc

https://nikah-nama.com/

[kmaherali]

Marriage Surpasses Cohabitation in Relationship Quality, But Most Americans Don’t Seem to Know It

Excerpt:

Pew surveyed U.S. adults about the trust they felt in their partner’s faithfulness, honesty, financial responsibility, communication skills, and whether a partner or spouse will “act in your best interest.” The results are telling. “By double digits,” as the report puts it, higher shares of married adults expressed trust in their partner’s faithfulness, honesty, and financial responsibility, and believed that their partners would act in their best interest, compared to cohabitors. For example, 84% of married adults said they trust their spouse to be faithful, versus 71% of cohabiters. And 68% of married adults believed their spouse to be truthful, compared to 52% of cohabiting adults.

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https://ifstudies.org/blog/marriage-sti ... to-know-it

*******
Testing a Relationship Is Probably the Worst Reason to Cohabit

Excerpt:

What about testing? As with our national data set, men were more likely than their partners (all women) to report cohabiting in order to test the relationship. We examined the personal and relationship characteristics of both men and women who reported testing, and found that:

“For men, higher levels of depressive symptoms, generalized anxiety symptoms, difficulty depending on others, and anxiety about abandonment were significantly associated with higher scores on testing.” (p. 247)
“For women, . . . greater abandonment anxiety was significantly associated with higher testing scores.” (p. 247)
“For both men and women, greater negative interaction and psychological aggression and lower relationship confidence and adjustment were significantly associated with higher scores on the testing subscale. For men only, greater physical aggression and lower levels of dedication were significantly associated with testing the relationship.”
These findings suggest that cohabiting to test a relationship is associated with many kinds of negatives. Does that mean that cohabitation causes those negatives? Probably not. There is a lot more evidence that those negatives were largely there before cohabiting.

We think of these findings this way. If you are considering whether or not to move in with someone to test the relationship, it’s likely not the wisest thing to do. In fact, it seems to us that many people who are thinking about testing their relationship by cohabiting already know, on some level, what the grade of that test may be; but they are hoping that the answer looks better over time.

If you are considering whether or not to move in with someone to test the relationship, it’s likely not the wisest thing to do.

More...

https://ifstudies.org/blog/testing-a-re ... to-cohabit

[kmaherali]

She’s 105. He’s 106. The world’s oldest living couple celebrates 80 years of marriage.

It all started in a zoology class in 1934. Students were seated alphabetically in the tiered lecture hall, so John Henderson, 21, sat directly behind Charlotte Curtis. When he looked down, he liked the shy 20-year-old he saw in front of him.

And Charlotte?

“I thought he was just a fine fella, and I didn’t mind his looking over my shoulder,” she told The Washington Post in an interview.

On Dec. 22, the couple — she’s 105; he’s 106 — will celebrate their 80th wedding anniversary. The Guinness World Records have recognized the longevity of their love by naming the Hendersons the oldest living married couple.

Photos and more...

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/sh ... ailsignout

[kmaherali]

How to Make Your Marriage Gayer

Same-sex spouses feel more satisfied with their partners than heterosexual ones. What’s the secret?

It’s been legal across the country for nearly five years now, and same-sex marriage hasn’t yet killed heterosexual marriage. In fact, it appears that many different-sex couples would have happier and more satisfying marriages if they took a few lessons from their same-sex counterparts.

Researchers recently asked three sets of legally married couples — heterosexual, gay and lesbian — to keep daily diaries recording their experiences of marital strain and distress. Women in different-sex marriages reported the highest levels of psychological distress. Men in same-sex marriages reported the lowest. Men married to women and women married to women were in the middle, recording similar levels of distress.

What’s striking, says the lead author of the study, Michael Garcia, is that earlier research had concluded that women in general were likely to report the most relationship distress. But it turns out that’s only women married to men.

There are powerful historical reasons heterosexual marriages are subject to more tension, miscommunication and resentment than same-sex relationships. What distinguished heterosexual marriage through the ages was not how many people were in it but the sharp distinctions it mandated regarding the duties and authority of its members.

Sometimes one husband exercised authority over the work of one wife, sometimes over two or more. Occasionally, as in many of the 80-plus societies known to have practiced polyandry, several husbands exercised power over one wife. Right up to the 1970s, when an American woman married, her husband took charge of her sexuality and most of her finances, property and behavior.

By that time, though, many Americans were already rejecting traditional marriage. During the 1970s and 1980s, wives won legal equality with husbands and courts redefined the responsibilities of spouses in gender-neutral terms. By 1994 a majority of Americans repudiated the necessity for gender-specialized roles in marriage, saying instead that shared responsibilities should be the ideal.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/opin ... 0920200213

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Is Marriage a Prize?

That’s what American social and pop culture taught me.

The Mrs. Files looks at history through a contemporary lens to see what the honorific “Mrs.” means to women and their identity.

Growing up, my parents — immigrants from India — emphasized school and career before marriage. They wanted me to be ambitious, get good grades and make good money (and stop asking them for some).

“You have to be financially independent,” my mother would say.

American social and pop culture taught me otherwise: Girls were to work toward one goal — getting married. I experienced it on TV shows like “The Nanny” and “Sex and the City,” that ended with the female protagonists married or heading that way; in women’s magazines (remember Glamour’s Engagement Chicken recipe, which was said to secure any man?); and in songs about romance that occupy many a wedding playlist.

That notion pervaded my upbringing, too. On the playground, the order of life was prescribed in nursery rhymes: “First comes love. Then comes marriage. Then comes the baby in the baby carriage.”

At sleepovers when I was 12, friends would bring out magazines and catalogs of wedding dresses so we could circle our favorite ones.

And there was a time when women were told to go to college not for a B.A. or a B.S. but for an “MRS. Degree,” with the expectation of walking right off the graduation stage and down the aisle.

Fewer and fewer women are letting those messages dictate how they live their adult lives, including when — or whether — to marry. The number of American women who had never been married was 30 percent in 2019, up from 23 percent in 1990, according to U.S. News and World Report. The median age for women who got married was 28 in 2019, up from 20 in 1956.

The Pew Research Center found in 2019 that 57 percent of women surveyed felt that marriage, while important, was not the key to living a fulfilling life; career enjoyment, on the other hand, was essential.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/15/arts ... ogin-email

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Man Divorces Wife of 45 Years Over Her Obsession with Cats
Jia Ling
theAsianparent June 3, 2020, 6:04 AM CDT
The court has granted divorce to a 70-year-old Singaporean retiree following the incident of his wife’s sudden obsession with cats that eventually drove him out of their home in 2006.

The couple had been facing problems since 1997, stated District Judge Sheik Mustafa on 21 May, and had been estranged from each other for 15 years.

According to reports, the husband was said to have tolerated his wife’s cats for almost a decade.

The 67-year-old woman developed a cat obsession after dreaming of her late mother who told her to be kind to the cats, the husband said.

In believing that looking after them was her only way to “cross into Paradise”, she would go around feeding stray cats and bring them back home.

“This feline collection created quite a nuisance. The cats roamed around the home freely. They were not toilet-trained and would urinate and defecate indiscriminately,” Judge Sheik Mustafa noted.

Husband’s Breaking Point
There came a point in time when the husband could no longer stand sleeping on their bed as it was “constantly defiled”. He moved to sleeping on a mat instead.

The stench from cat faeces and urine that emanated from the couple’s home subsequently led to neighbours complaining. Despite authorities showing up at their home to warn the wife, she continued to grow her feline collection.

In 2003, the husband called the police in hopes to change the situation, showing them his living conditions. However, it was simply left as a domestic issue and he later tried to avoid his wife as much as possible.

Unable to tolerate it any longer, he then left their matrimonial home—a two-storey terrace house—to live with his brother-in-law.

He has not returned since 2007 and has stopped contacting his wife.

45 Year Marriage Dissolved
In the decision issued on 21 May by District Judge Sheik Mustafa, he attributes it to “unreasonable behaviour and separation”.

While court documents did not state the couple’s names, it revealed that they were married in May 1975 and have three adult children.

They also did not specify how many cats the wife had, or the reason why it took the husband more than a decade to file for divorce after leaving their home in 2006.

On top of the wife’s feline obsession, the husband claimed that his wife did not allow him to see their children—even during the time when their son was in the intensive care unit.

Withdrew Money from Joint Account Without Consent
The husband had received a S$500,000 pension after his retirement as a teacher which went into the joint savings account with his wife.

However, without his consent, she withdrew a large sum (S$200,000) from the fund which led to further cracks in the marriage. The wife admitted to doing so, according to District Judge Mustafa.

The constant quarrels about the missing funds made their “already bad relationship become worse”, he noted.

Wife Appeals Against Court’s Decision
Despite the situation, the wife is appealing against the court’s decision on the divorce.

She had previously opposed the divorce application because she did not want to split the matrimonial home.

“On a balance of probabilities, the husband has proved his case. The marriage between the parties has broken down irretrievably due to the behaviour of the wife, and due to four years of separation. There is no possibility of reconciliation. There are no minor children. For these reasons, it is just and reasonable to grant a judgment to dissolve the marriage,” said District Judge Mustafa in his written statement.

The wife will also have to pay the Director of Legal Aid S$3,000 in costs.

https://currently.att.yahoo.com/lifesty ... 00173.html

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The Difficulties and Delights of a Pandemic Wedding

The coronavirus turned our plans upside down, but in the end, the day was perfect.

NASHVILLE — When our oldest son got engaged last year at sunset on a beach in Spain, my husband and I cheered from half a world away. I write these words without hyperbole: We were truly as happy about this pending marriage as two human beings could possibly be.

The parents of three sons, my husband and I would have a daughter at last, and we already loved this amazing young woman. We loved how happy she and our son make each other. We loved the way they support and challenge and admire each other, the way they are always laughing together. They are the kind of people who would rather save up for a grand backpacking adventure than a grand engagement ring, and we loved how a ring made from my great-grandmother’s tiny diamond made its way to Spain in a special wooden box that my son carried in his pocket, waiting for just the right moment to drop to one knee.

What was there not to love? There was nothing not to love.

The months that unspooled between the storybook engagement and the pandemic wedding, on the other hand, produced much that was not to love.

It was always going to be a small, do-it-yourself event: just family and their very dearest friends at Cedars of Lebanon State Park, in a historic lodge that seats only 75 people. A newly minted college graduate would be the photographer. A fellow nurse at the hospital where my daughter-in-law works would bake the cake. I would grow the wedding flowers, and the bride’s mother would make the tablecloths for the reception. But no matter how simple it looks or how homey it feels, a D.I.Y. wedding requires a lot of planning.

The coronavirus turned all those plans upside down, requiring new plans, and then newer plans, as the pandemic worsened, with wildfire infections spreading across cities and rural counties alike. Twelve days before the wedding, Gov. Bill Lee extended Tennessee’s state of emergency for another two months.

The bride’s mother started making masks — enough for every single guest and member of the wedding party. The half-hour ceremony got streamlined to 15 minutes. Plans for the reception shifted to an outdoor patio, never mind that afternoon temperatures in July average 90 degrees in Middle Tennessee. Bottles of hand sanitizer would be nestled among the flower arrangements at every table.

Even so, the guests were getting nervous. Family members of my generation began to send regrets. New York added Tennessee to the list of states from which visitors — and returning New Yorkers — would be forced to quarantine after entering. One of my son’s groomsmen, a childhood friend who now lives in New York City, decided he couldn’t afford to lose those two weeks and sent his regrets too.

As their wedding day approached, the happy couple was becoming a worried couple. Tennessee’s state of emergency limits social gatherings to 50 people or fewer, although that requirement does not apply to funerals, weddings or church services. Legally, then, the wedding could go on as planned, and those plans now included every safety measure anyone could think of. But there is more to a pandemic wedding than questions of legality, and clearly the tenor of this event had already changed. Was it truly safe? Would guests spend the whole time uneasy and subdued?

With eight days to go, my son and daughter-in-law sent an email to their entire guest list that effectively canceled the wedding. The ceremony would still take place; there just wouldn’t be any guests in Cedar Forest Lodge to witness it. “We both love each and every one of you and it truly breaks our hearts to make this decision, but we both know that the best decision isn’t always the easiest to make,” my son wrote. “We also know that a wedding is just one day in our lives and a wedding doesn’t make a marriage.”

They are far from alone in revisiting the whole purpose of a wedding. Just among our closest friends, one wedding has been postponed indefinitely and another finally took place, two months late, in the bride’s sister’s backyard. Here in the United States, the $74 billion wedding industry has come to a grinding halt. Abroad, it took three tries for Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen of Denmark to find a wedding date that would stick, and the rescheduled wedding for Princess Beatrice of Britain included only immediate family.

In the end, our own family’s pandemic wedding was absolutely perfect. Parents and siblings joined the couple in the hall; grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins and friends watched via Zoom. When the time came to make their vows, to promise that they would love each other through good times and bad, in sickness and in health, our son and daughter-in-law stood in front of a window installed during the Great Depression by workers who knew something about unearned suffering.

They stood and gazed at each other in front of that sun-drenched window, and I think they surely had no sense at all of how many loved ones were there with them or how many loved ones were missing from the echoing hall. They didn’t know because his eyes never left hers, and because her eyes never left his, and because the promises they made, however publicly such vows are spoken in a wedding ceremony, are promises that belong to the two of them alone.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/26/opin ... 778d3e6de3

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'I Wanted to Argue With Him': UP Woman Seeks Divorce for Being 'Too Loved' by Husband
Buzz Staff
News18 August 22, 2020, 12:16 AM CDT

'I Wanted to Argue With Him': UP Woman Seeks Divorce for Being 'Too Loved' by Husband
'I Wanted to Argue With Him': UP Woman Seeks Divorce for Being 'Too Loved' by Husband
In a bizarre incident, an Uttar Pradesh woman filed a divorce against his husband for not fighting and being too kind to her.

After being married for 18 months, she approached the Sharia court that she was fed up and could not digest her husband showering so much love on her, reports The Week.

The wife alleged that at times he even cooked and helped her with household chores, adding that they hardly have any disagreements between them.

“Whenever I make a mistake, he always forgives me for that. I wanted to argue with him,” she was quoted saying.

However, the court completely dismissed her plea this considering it to be quite impractical. Following the court's dismissal, she also approached the local panchayat, which too couldn't come to a conclusion regarding the matter.

The legal body asked the couple to resolve the matter by themselves, after the husband requested the withdrawal of the see stating all he wants is to see his wife happy.

Last year, in a similar incident, a woman wanted to part ways with her husband because she felt “choked” by his “extreme love and affection" in the UAE.

The woman has approached the Shariah court in Fujairah for a divorce from the man and she had said, "He never yelled at me or turned me down.

https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/wan ... 32443.html

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Dating For 8 Years, Zambian Woman Drags Boyfriend and Father of Child to Court For Not Marrying Her
News18
Thu, December 10, 2020, 5:30 AM CST

Romantic relationships are complicated and they sometimes become more complex when one partner wants more from the relationship than the other.

The Breach of Promise is a common law tort that lets a person file a case against someone who has failed to live up to a promise. It has been abolished in many jurisdictions. Taking extreme measures to get clarity about her relationship, a 26-year-old woman in Zambia has dragged her boyfriend to court so that she gets to know his plans for the future, reported Daily Mail quoting Zambian news agency Mwebantu.

Gertrude Ngoma is in a romantic relationship with 28-year-old Herbert Salaliki for the last eight years. The couple has a child together as well.

According to Gertrude, Herbert promised to marry her. However, she doubts his loyalty after he caught him texting another woman. She said, “He has never been serious, that is why I bought him to court because I deserve to know the way forward and our future.”

Defending himself, Herbert said that he wants to marry Gertrude but cannot afford to do that. He said there is a lack of communication between the two and he believes Gertrude is not affectionate towards him. Herbert has already paid lobola which is similar to bride service. In Zambia, Lobola is an ‘appreciation fee’ which is given to the family of the bride by the man as an assurance that the groom is going to take care of his wife.

It is noteworthy that in Zambia, there have been protests against lobola and there was a demand for its abolition. Critics say that it amounts to paying a price for the bride which then makes it acceptable for the husband to treat her the way he wants. However, lobola is still widely prevalent in the country.

Although lobola has been paid, the couple still live separately with Gertrude living with her parents. The family of three hasn’t lived together ever. Gertrude believes that Herbert is not interested in getting married despite paying lobola. Herbert insists that he is not financially stable enough to afford a wedding.

The judge who was presiding over this case said that Gertrude could sue for breach of marriage contract. However, Judge Evelyn Nalwize of the Kabushi Local Court said that authorities can do little more than intervening. It was ruled that the couple should try to reconcile their differences outside of court.

https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/cm/ ... 32318.html

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Foundation of Strong Spousal Relationship - Alwaez Kamaluddin Ali Muhammad

Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aIiOWisl-A

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I Tried to Filter Him Out

As a Pakistani Muslim, I knew that falling for a Hindu Indian would break me. And it did.

We started texting during the early months of the pandemic, going back and forth every day for hours. The stay-at-home order created a space for us to get to know each other because neither of us had any other plans.

We built a friendship founded on our love of music. I introduced him to the hopelessly romantic soundtrack of my life: Durand Jones & The Indications, Toro y Moi and the band Whitney. He introduced me to classic Bollywood soundtracks, Tinariwen and the bass-filled tracks of Khruangbin.

He was eccentrically passionate in a way that barely annoyed me and often inspired me. Our banter was only curtailed by bedtimes we grudgingly enforced at 3 a.m., after eight straight hours of texting.

We had met on a dating app for South Asians called Dil Mil. My filters went beyond age and height to exclude all non-Muslim and non-Pakistani men. As a 25-year-old woman who grew up in the Pakistani-Muslim community, I was all too aware of the prohibition on marrying outside of my faith and culture, but my filters were more safeguards against heartbreak than indications of my religious and ethnic preferences. I simply did not want to fall for someone I couldn’t marry (not again, anyway — I had already learned that lesson the hard way).

How a passionate, quirky, ambitious, 30-year-old, Hindu Indian American made it through my filters — whether by technical glitch or an act of God — I’ll never know. All I know is that once he did, I fell deeply in love with him.

He lived in San Francisco while I was quarantining seven hours south. I had already planned to move up north, but Covid and the forest fires delayed those plans. By August, I finally made the move — both to my new home and on him.

He drove two hours to pick me up bearing gag gifts that represented inside jokes we had shared during our two-month texting phase. I already knew everything about this man except his touch, his essence and his voice.

After two months of effortless communication, we approached this meeting desperate to be as perfect in person. The pressure to be nothing less overwhelmed us until he turned some music on. Dre’es’s “Warm” played and everything else fell into place — soon we were laughing like old friends.

We went to the beach and shopped for plants. At his apartment, he made me drinks and dinner. The stove was still on when my favorite Toro y Moi song, “Omaha,” came on. He stopped cooking to deliver a cheesy line that was quickly overshadowed by a passionate kiss. In this pandemic, it was just us, with our favorite music accompanying every moment.

On our fourth date, he transformed his apartment into The Fillmore venue to create a concert at home. He scanned my fake ticket, took my coat, made a gaudy cocktail and ushered me to the dimly lit dance floor where we danced terribly, but always in each other’s arms.

He ended the set with Leon Bridges’s song, “Beyond,” one I had heard many times. He held me tight and whispered, “I was afraid to show you this song, but here it is.”

We swayed slowly as I listened to the lyrics: “I’m scared to death that she might be it … That the love is real, that the shoe might fit …”

I avoided eye contact with him, but I gripped the back of his flannel shirt tighter because I knew what line was coming: “Will she be my wife?”

He wasn’t crazy, and it was not too soon, because I felt the same. After having endured several dead-end relationships with non-Muslims and Muslims alike, here he was at last, the man I was supposed to be with. I knew it was time to have the big conversation with him — the one in which I remind him that I am Muslim.

On our fifth date, we drank white wine on a semi-quiet San Francisco street corner. I asked if he was ready to hear more about my family and religion.

“Yes,” he said.

I said, “Do you understand what it means to be with a Muslim girl?”

He began to ramble about his academic curiosity for the Quran and spirituality, and his eagerness to raise children in an interfaith household.

“If we decide to be together,” I said, “you need to understand that the only way forward is for you to convert. It won’t make things easy, but it will make things possible.”

His answer came too fast for comfort: “I’m game.”

How could he be so certain?

“Sometimes,” he said, “you are willing to change your whole future for one person.”

He and I continued to date for the rest of the year, fleeing from the societal expectations of our families and communities — fleeing, really, from any expectations at all. In our Covid bubble, we said “I love you” too soon, didn’t listen to our friends when they urged us to take it slow and ignored the harsh familial realities ahead of us.

I hadn’t told my mother anything about him, not a word, despite being months into the most consequential romantic relationship of my life. But Thanksgiving was fast approaching, when we each would return to our families.

This love story may have been his and mine, but without my mother’s approval, there would be no path forward. She was born and raised in Karachi, Pakistan. To expect her to understand how I fell in love with a Hindu would require her to unlearn all the traditions and customs with which she had been raised. I promised myself to be patient with her.

I was scared to raise the subject, but I wanted to share my happiness. With just the two of us in my bedroom, she began complaining about Covid spoiling my marriage prospects, at which point I blurted the truth: I already had met the man of my dreams.

“Who?” she said. “Is he Muslim?”

When I said no, she shrieked.

“Is he Pakistani?”

When I said no, she gasped.

“Can he speak Urdu or Hindi?”

When I said no, she started to cry.

But as I spoke about my relationship with him, and the fact that he had pledged to convert for me, she softened.

“I have never seen you talk about anyone like this,” she said. “I know you’re in love.” With these words of understanding, I saw that her strict framework was ultimately less important than my happiness.

When I told him that my mother knew the truth, he celebrated the momentum this development promised. However, in the coming weeks, he grew anxious that her approval was entirely predicated on him converting.

We each returned home once more for the December holidays, and that’s when I felt the foundation of my relationship with him begin to crack. With every delayed response to my texts, I knew something had changed. And indeed, everything had.

When he told his parents that he was thinking of converting for me, they broke down, crying, begging, pleading with him not to abandon his identity. We were two people who were able to defy our families and lean on serendipitous moments, lucky numbers and astrology to prove we belonged together. But we only searched for signs because we ran out of solutions.

Finally, he called, and we spoke, but it didn’t take long to know where things stood.

“I will never convert to Islam,” he said. “Not nominally, not religiously.”

More quickly than he had declared “I’m game” on that sunny San Francisco afternoon all those months ago, I said, “Then that’s it.”

Many people will never understand the requirements of marrying a Muslim. For me, the rules about marriage are stubborn, and the onus of sacrifice lies with the non-Muslim whose family is presumably more open to the possibility of interfaith relationships. Many will say it’s selfish and incongruous that a non-Muslim must convert for a Muslim. To them I would say I cannot defend the arbitrary limitations of Muslim love because I have been broken by them. I lost the man I thought I would love forever.

For a while I blamed my mother and religion, but it’s hard to know how strong our relationship really was with the music turned off. We loved in a pandemic, which was not the real world. Our romance was insulated from the ordinary conflicts of balancing work, friends and family. We were isolated both by our forbidden love and a global calamity, which surely deepened what we felt for each other. What we had was real, but it wasn’t enough.

I have since watched Muslim friends marry converts. I know it’s possible to share a love so endless that it can overcome these obstacles. But for now, I will keep my filters on.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/16/styl ... iversified

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Chand Raat of Dhu al-Hajj 1442, 10th July 2021: The Rites of Marriage Ceremonies and Traditions within Ismaili Muslim Communities
BY ISMAILIMAIL POSTED ON JULY 9, 2021

By: Sadruddin Noorani, Chicago, USA

This is the month in which the marriage ceremony of Fatimat-az-Zahra (a.s) and Hazrat Ali (a.s) was solemnized. Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h) told Hazrat Ali (a.s) that he was decreed by Allah (s.w.t) to give his daughter Fatimah (a.s) to him in marriage. Prophet Muhammad has said in this regard that an angel had come from Allah and told him: “The Lord sends his greetings unto you and has said, I have wedded your daughter Fatimah in the heavens to Ali ibn Abi Talib; you too should, therefore, wed Fatimah to Ali ibn Abi Talib!” Ref: Abdullah ibn Masud (r.a) (594-653).

It was Allah’s will that the offspring of the Messenger of God descended from Imam Ali (a.s) and Fatimat-az-Zahra (a.s), and their progeny be the Imams and guides for this Ummah. That is why the marriage of Imam Ali (a.s) and Fatimat-az-Zahra (a.s) took place upon a Divine order, and it possesses a special spiritual significance for all Muslims because it is seen as the marriage between the greatest saintly figures surrounding Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h).

And thus, the married life of Hazrat Fatimat-az-Zahra (a.s) and Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib (a.s) began. The establishment of the new house was completed, and its firm pillars were fixed by the Messenger of God. By them he secured the basis of the new legislation, life and philosophy of marriage and family. It was an example set for the generations to follow.

The Rites of Marriage – NIKAH

Marriage is a fundamental social institution and a sacred union between a man and a woman that developed in human communities and cultures globally, forming part of the family structure. Traditionally, marriages are formal agreements made valid by religion or civil law. In Muslim societies, marriage is viewed as a natural and necessary institution in the lives of human beings, in contrast to adopting an ascetic way of life.

God almighty says in the Holy Qur’an, “And among His signs is that He created for you, of yourselves, spouses so that you may live in peace and tranquility with them, and ordained love and compassion between you. Verily, there are signs in this for those who reflect” (30:21).

One way to understand marriage in Islam may be to see it as a sign of mercy and a blessing from God who has extended His own Love and Mercy to men and women by means of which we can encounter God’s Love and Mercy in each other.

Imam Sultan Mohamed Shah (Aga Khan lll) (a.s) highlights in his memoirs (1954, page 171) how the experience of love of one human being for another is a blessing from Allah:

“Those who have had the good fortune to know and feel this worldly, human love should respond to it only with gratitude and regard it as a blessing and as, in its own way, a source of pride. I firmly believe that the higher experience can to a certain extent be prepared for, by absolute devotion in the material world to another human being. Thus, from the most worldly point of view and with no comprehension of the higher life of the spirit, the lower, more terrestrial spirit makes us aware that all the treasures of this life, all that fame, wealth, and health can bring are nothing beside the happiness which is created and sustained by the love of one human being for another.”

As a social practice, customs related to marriage ceremonies vary widely in Muslim communities from one culture to another. A variety of marriage rites may be performed, reflecting the local culture and customs of the people. In Islam a marriage ceremony involves a simple procedure attesting to a solemn contract and accepting mutual responsibilities, in the presence of witnesses. The introduction to the Ismaili Muslim marriage (Nikah) text states: “As in Islam generally, marriage in the Shia Ismaili community is a social contract involving mutual consent and acceptance of definite rights and responsibilities between a man and a woman. The notion of sacrament is not ascribed to marriage, but it is customary to offer prayers for happiness, prosperity, posterity and good health. Thus, it is simply the principle of mutual consent and understanding that constitutes the essence of marriage.”


Traditional Nikah-nama


The word “Nikah-nama”, meaning ‘marriage contract’ is in traditional Arabic language reflecting the language of the Holy Qur’an. There are three principal elements in the Shia Ismaili Nikah:

(a) Khutba (sermon): A short homily, or wa’z, in praise of Almighty Allah and Invoking Allah’s blessing for Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h) and his progeny, from Hazrat Ali (a.s) to the present Imam.

The recitation of ayats of the Holy Qur’an 1:1-7, 2:188, 7:189, 16:72, 24:32-3, 25:54, 30:21 and hadiths of the Prophet are also traditional elements of the Khutba. Verily the Almighty and exalted God speaks the Truth.

(b) Contract: The indispensable element of marriage in Islam is the contract, (i.e., ‘Nikah’) reflecting mutual consent and acceptance of definite rights and responsibilities. The contract, to be witnessed by two adults, requires an offer made by one party (the male) and its acceptance by the other (the female), with a clear intention to conclude a valid marriage with immediate effect. The contract must also stipulate a Mahr (dowry).

(c) Du’a: A prayer invoking Allah’s blessings for the newlyweds and to receive His favors for a happy marriage and fine posterity. Citing the favors that Allah bestowed upon His Prophets and their spouses, and on Hazrat Ali and Bibi Fatimah.

The Du’a includes a beautiful recollection of inspiring unions within our faith tradition. We pray:

O Allah, unite the two as you united Nabiyyina Adam and Hawwa (Eve) (alayhi-s-salam).

O Allah, unite the two as you united Nabiyyina Ibrahim (Abraham) and Hajar (Hagar) (alayhi-s-salam).

O Allah, unite the two as you united Nabiyyina Yusuf (Joseph) and Zulaykha (Asenath) (alayhi-s-salam).

O Allah, unite the two as you united Nabiyyina Musa (Moses) and Safura (Zipporah) (alayhi-s-salam).

O Allah, unite the two as you united Nabiyyina Muhammad al-Mustafa and Khadijat al-Kubra (alayhi-s-salam).

O Allah, unite the two as you united Mawlana Ali al-Murtaza and Fatimat az-Zahra (alayhi-s-salam).

This is followed by recitation of the ‘Shahada’ (i.e., ‘testimony’) as follows:

I bear witness that there is no deity but Allah.

And I bear witness that Muhammad is Allah’s last and final messenger.

And I bear witness that Ali, the commander of the faithful, is from Allah.

O Allah, bestow your blessings upon Muhammad the Chosen, on Ali the favorite, the Pure Imams and on the Proof of thy Command.

And praise be to Allah the Lord of the worlds.


As we reflect on these elegant prayers, we are also reminded of the beautiful relationship of trust and respect between Bibi Khadija and the Holy Prophet (p.b.u.h). The Prophet is said to have said: “She had faith in me when everyone, even members of my own family and tribe did not believe me and accepted that I was truly a Prophet and a Messenger of Allah. She accepted Islam and spent all her wealth and worldly goods to help me spread this faith, and this too at a time when the entire world seemed to have turned against me and persecuted me. And it is through her that Allah blessed me with children.”

In the last part of the Du’a we ask Allah to make the marriage a blessed one and grant them fine posterity.

The Nikah-nama ends with our declaration of faith and the recitation of Durood-O-Salaam (sending salutation) on the names of the Prophets and their spouses, Hazrat Ali and Bibi Fatima az-Zahra, and all the Imams.

The Nikah is performed only if both parties wish to voluntarily undertake this contract using the common Nikah text provided by the Ismaili institutions, which directly reflect Islamic traditions. The bride and bridegroom also agree to refer any dispute between them relating to their marriage, to the Aga Khan Conciliation and Arbitration Board (CAB).

A few other individuals also play a prominent role in the Nikah ceremony. It is customary for each family to select a Wakil (advocate), over the age of 18, to represent the bride and the groom respectively in marriage negotiations including an agreement on Haq Mahr. By custom and tradition, a Wakil is a male representative of the bride or the groom (who can be a volunteer advocate but could also be a family member or a friend). The bride is accompanied by the maid/matron of honor, and the groom by his best man. In addition to the Ismaili appointed representatives present at the time, they too sign the marriage contract as witnesses.

The Holy Qur’an however, forbids certain marriage relations: It will be seen that these prohibitions arise either from consanguinity, as in the case of parent, child, sibling, sibling’s child, parent’s sibling, grandparent/grandchild, or from foster-age, such as in the case of foster-parents and foster sister/brother; foster child, step son/daughter, or from affinity, such as in the case of spouse’s parent, spouse’s step child and children’s spouse (4:22-24).

According to the Holy Prophet’s teaching, no one should be forced to marry anyone that they do not desire. The way that both husband and wife should conduct themselves in marriage is also set out in the Qur’an. Marital relationships should involve the qualities of affection, repose and mercy, and the example of the Prophet is the recommended norm. Consultations which are enjoined on all Muslims in conducting their common affairs become important in marriage, and we find mutual consultations occurring frequently, always in the reciprocal form (mutual acceptance, and mutual consultation) (2:231-2:236, 65:6). The Holy Qur’an says in Surah An-Nisa [4:19], “A good believer should not loathe his wife. If he dislikes one characteristic of her – there are other characteristics which will be pleasing.”

In the Holy Qur’an, the rights of women are protected – the rights to dowry, lodging and maintenance, and the legitimacy of offsprings. The Qur’an sets out rights for the wife and then allows her to willingly waive some, such as the dowry if she chooses (4: 24).
Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GvYAjWqgE0

ALI KE SATH HAI ZEHRA KI SHADI. Concept & Vision by: SADRUDDIN NOORANI. Singer: FEDDY FAP. Source: Feddy Fap (YouTube)

In previous articles we have explored and discussed different religious occasions, rituals and ceremonies, which offer opportunities for our families and our communities to come together to witness, engage with, and pray for our safe voyages as the ship of our lives carries us along through our earthly passage in time.

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