Nuptials: Women Do Have the Right to Choose Their Own Spouse, and How the Qur’anic Nuptial Agreement Advocates for the Bride

Abstract

Having established that women have a right to their own property, the Qur’an also abolishes the earlier custom of men inheriting the wives of their deceased relatives as spouses, thereby taking over the deceased husband’s property, and of forcing them to or preventing them from marrying as they may choose in order to retain control of the same. This combination of Qur’anic actions established women as the subjects as opposed to objects of inheritance. And there would now be a bridal gift from the groom, too, before a marriage can be effected, providing women with yet another source of income and independence. Yet the insistence by some that men are women’s “guardians” has sapped many women of the ability to choose their own spouse, while taking the bridal gift too seriously is labelled “greedy” or potentially off-putting to a would-be groom and his family.