Few months into her marriage, she returned home a divorcee. It was not only paining but traumatizing. She was in her early twenties after all. That’s enough a reason to be down.
The trauma glued to her emotion that she gave no suitor no chance in her world any longer. She ignored all advances and rejected all proposals that came her way. That’s because she was still grappling with the wounds in her heart.
A single-mother she remained until years down the line – when a man she thought would not be like her ex got her heart again. She gave in to the man’s request to make her his second queen.
Of course, they needed not waste time. So the nikaah was done low key, and the lady’s hand was given in marriage to the lucky suitor. But in no distant time – just a few weeks down the line – the union was greeted with vendetta and jotted by skirmish.
The husband’s parents as well as the first wife weren’t in the know of the nikaah. They were cut out of the whole process. As the news of the new union got broken to them, hell was let loose. The wife, in unison with the parents, poured scorn on the husband’s face. And the lady was rejected outright. The man tried convincing the parents – especially – but his poetic pleas fell on deaf ears.
He might have prevailed on the wife as the king of the home, but his parents’ outright disapproval oiled the woman’s wings. Who knows, her adamance might be because she wasn’t privy to the nikaah until afterwards, or that she wanted no woman share her husband with her. Allah knew best.
Since then, the union knew no peace, and in the end broke into pieces – in less than three months of conjugality.
We hear these days that secret nikaah is the new trend among brethren. A sister would be taken in as number-two wife with the knowledge of neither the first nor the parents of the husband. Each time they wanted to be with the second, the first would be given some untrue reasons for their absence at home. Subhaanallaah! What is this, and how long will that last?
For me – I stand challenged – any man who does that is nothing but a coward. He is effeminate. He is apparently not in charge of his home. If telling your woman you want to have another woman for a wife is a big deal, then you aren’t fit for what you desire in your heart. And/or if telling her after having the woman is heavy too, then you are indisputably not fit to have one.
Informing the man’s parents of the incoming of either the first or the second woman is no condition for the acceptability of nikaah though, but our culture (which if not contradictory to the Sharer’ah should be upheld), requires the parents to be in the practical know of their child’s intent to marry. Why would they be cut off the process? Even if they would not be there in person, they surely deserved to know in principle. It’s a tradition that is not against Islam.
Sisters are usually at the receiving end. The man’s sugar-coated mouth should not be fallen for. If they would be married without the parents, they should equally give no way. Let your parents hand you over to their parents. That’s better and saner.
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