Woman in Islamic Shari‘ah
11. Success in marriage
~ 246 ~
Problems are bound to arise when the girl is lacking
in intellect and the parents are also ignorant. The
position is further aggravated when the girl does
not consider the new home to be her own and is,
consequently, not regarded as a member of the
family into which she has married. What she
suffers, as a result, is self-inflicted. What is actually
at fault is her own poor understanding of what is
required of her as a daughter-in-law, but she very
conveniently blames all her misery on her in-laws.
As the old adage has it, “Every parent is foolish
when it comes to his own children.” When girls go
to the extreme of complaining about imaginary
wrongs, parents tend to take their stories quite
literally. And that is how feuds are started. The
outcome is always unpleasant for the one who
starts it, and the girl, being of the weaker sex, is
always the loser.
Why is it that a girl’s complaints about her in-laws
do not always appear to be based on fact? It is
because they present only one side of the case. The
very fact that only one side of the story has been
told means that it is lacking in veracity. Does a
