A Comparative Study of the Status and Importance of Marriage and Family Formation in Islam and Judaism

The institution of family, as one of the most basic pillars of human society, has always been taken into consideration in all divine and secular schools due to its role in man's perfection and felicity or affliction of society. Two Abrahamic religions, Islam and Judaism, attach high status and holiness to family system and issue common injunctions about marriage and family formation although they have some differences in terms of its limits and conditions of formation. The present paper seeks to extract the status and importance of family from authentic sources of these two religions-the Holy Quran, infallible Imam's hadiths, Torah and its valid interpretations- and compare them. Both Islam and Judaism put special importance on the formation of family, emphasize on accelerating the marriage, reproach singleness, and believe that meeting sexual needs is possible only through marriage and within family.