“If I do such-and-such, I will make my wife my mother”

Question

Question: Zayd and ‘Amr are brothers-in-law (married to sisters). Some tension arose between them over something. One day Zayd said in a state of anger: “If I marry my son Bakr to ‘Amr’s daughter Kaniza, it will be as though I make my wife my mother,” and he said this many times. Later, when the tension between Zayd and ‘Amr ended, the nikah between Zayd’s son and ‘Amr’s daughter was also concluded. In such a case, has Zayd’s wife remained in Zayd’s marriage or not?

Answer

This sentence of Zayd’s is an utterly indecent and foolish one; Zayd must feel remorse for it, and in future he must never say such a thing. But the nikah has not ended because of it; it remains intact as before.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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