If I have divorced, can my family prevent me from choosing a second spouse by myself?
Question: I am a twenty-five year old girl. I have undergone an unsuccessful marriage that ended with divorce. My family prevents me from choosing my second marital life by myself. Legally, do they have the right to do that or am I free to choose my husband?
The answer: Legally, you are free to choose the husband whom you think will be suitable for you, but you would be better off, in order to live free from family troubles, to agree with your family in any way you find will have an influence on them.
Always decide to avoid what causes quarrels in your life, because a life full of quarrels and nervousness is nearer to death than to life.
Man lives happily with his family and relatives when he behaves with them leniently, smilingly, and wisely. It is wrong when man thinks of attaining happiness through violence, nervousness, enmity, and hatred. Those who think so are but moving corpses until a certain day.
Support for your situation in convincing your family of your free will in choosing is a saying of Imam as-Sadiq (a.s.). When he was asked a question similar to yours, he said, ‘She is worthier of herself. She can entrust a qualified one with her affairs if she likes after she has got married to a husband before.’
Imam ar-Ridha (a.s.) has said, ‘The permission of a virgin (concerning marriage) is her keeping silence and the permission of a widow or divorcee is up to her.’
And you should not forget that a family often prevents their daughter from choosing her husband by herself because they do not want her to be involved in another failure, for it is quite often that young girls and women are deceived by the nice words and shapes of men, and then when those men satisfy their desires with these women, they leave them to look for other victims. Therefore, Islam has emphasized the necessity of the interference of a father in the matter of marriage of a virgin because she has not had enough experience in this concern and she may be liable to be deceived more than divorcees or widows who have some experience in this matter.
Yes! There is a special exception that if a virgin is rational and prudent, and her father is ignorant and cannot decide for the advantage of his daughter, Islam permits her to choose a suitable husband by herself even if her father objects to her choice.
Ibn Abbas reports that one day a bondwoman came to the Prophet (S) and told him that her father had married her to somebody while she was unwilling and the Prophet (S) gave her the choice (either to accept her husband or to leave him).
Imam as-Sadiq (a.s.) said, ‘There is no problem in marrying a virgin if she agrees without her father’s permission72.’
In the light of this, our jurisprudents have given a fatwa that if a virgin’s guardian prevents her from getting married to a qualified man whom she wants, her guardian’s permission will be of no effect.