The Jurisprudential Rule of Necessity of Behaving Reasonably in Marital Relationship

This article analyzes a lesser-known rule in the Islamic jurisprudence entitled“The necessity of behaving reasonably in marital relationship”. According to the rule, the mutual legal relationship between wife and husband must be based on the current rational custom of Islamic society. In other words, in addition to what holy Qur’an says, the manner of the Prophet Mohammad, and infallible Imams, new rational customs can and must play decisive role in determining the framework of Islamic family law, as far as they have not been rejected explicitly or implicitly in Islamic teachings. In this way the examples of customary and reasonable behavior may vary from time to time, place to place and from one culture and civilization to another. Due to the generality of the evidence supporting the rule from the Holy Qur’an, narrations (ahadith) and jurists’ reliance upon the ruling in different cases, the article tries to strengthen and develop the rule and shed light on its implementation in areas like management of the family, sexual relationship, financial issues, residency and decision about reproduction.