The satisfaction of the husband for going out of the house /1

There are some rules in Islam regarding the rights of the wife and husband. For example the duty of husband is to supply the economic needs of his wife i.e. food, cloth and house, or the duty of a wife is to expose herself to her husband when he wants to have intercourse with her (of course if there is not any barrier like the illness of women etc.). One of the duties of a wife is to leave going out of the house in the cases with which her husband is not satisfied. As we said before we must differentiate between the legality and morality. Let me talk in detail trough an example. Imagine a family, the husband says to his wife: You must not go anywhere except in the cases that I let you. In the same time the wife says: If you order me in this way, so I do not cook even the most simplest foods and you must prepare for me delicious foods three times a day and I don’t clean the house or do laundry or nurse the baby.

You see in this example, the words of both wife and husband is not against Islamic rulings. The legal duty of a wife is not to cook or clean the house, and on the other hand the wife should not go out of the house without the satisfaction of her husband. Imagine what a bitter life this family would have if they want to insist on their own rights. On the other hand there are many Narrations that describe the Thawabs and rewards of a woman who does the affairs of the house or the rewards of a man who helps his wife in the house. So how can we add between these two cases i.e. the legality and morality? The answer is to say that the mentioned rights of each wife and husband can create a balance between them in the life and only as the last stage of the dispute among them or at the time of referring to the court they can be brought as witness. So we must not mix between them. After talking about this important point let’s look at the reason or philosophy beyond the Islamic rule which states the wife is not allowed to go out of the house without the satisfaction of her husband, because you know that some people might blame Islam and say that Islam is against the freedom of the women.

At the beginning we must say that this rule is not a general rule. There are some cases that the wife is allowed to go out of the house without the permission of her husband, like the time of the obligatory Hajj (pilgrimage of the house of Allah in Mecca), referring to a court or some other places for complaining about an oppression that was done to her, or (according to some jurists) in the situations that the wife has made an obligatory condition at the time of marriage to have the permission to go out of the house whenever she wants.

To be continued.