A Couple's Mutual Rights and Duties

The religion of Islam has created mutual rights, liabilities and obligations for the couple to consolidate the basis of the family and to help it growand flourish. There is no doubt that the observance of these rights and obligations strengthens the relationship, brings about sincerity and prevents any chaos in the family. It is important to study the mutual rights and obligations from two perspectives: One, owing to the religious weakness of some people and also the influence of some intellectual, cultural and epistemological movements in the West especially the Feminist thinking, the family doctrines are losing ground and values as a result of which the couples have become increasingly negligent towards each other's rights not fulfilling their obligations properly. Obviously, any negligence on the part of the couple (given their important and effective roles in the family), will not only make the family relationship vulnerable but it can also disturb the rest of the family and bring about disintegration. Second, the inundation of many specious arguments such as the disparity of the rights and obligations of the couples in the family, and also the extraction of some of the religious injunctions from the body of the religion without having a comprehensive look at Islamic laws will lead to misuse of religious doctrines. Thus, it will create the misgiving that Islam has done injustice to women since it endorses a patriarchal attitude towards the duties and mutual obligations of men and women. This argument creates misunderstanding about the divine teachings of Islam. The present article has studied, with reliance on the Quran, traditions and views of jurists and lawyers and those of the psychologists about the philosophy of the differences in the rights and obligations of the couples, the common and specific duties of the couples. It has also examined the differences with esoteric (verses, narrations and Islamic jurisprudence) and exoteric (psychological) perspectives.