Are the wife’s maintenance and housing the husband’s responsibility?

Question

Question: An adult woman says to her husband: “Since you are not yourself able to earn, then as long as you do not feed me from your own earnings and do not give me a separate dwelling to live in, I will not come from my father’s house. These rights, which by the Shari‘a are your responsibility, I do not want to obtain from anyone else, even if it be my father-in-law. So when you give me a separate dwelling to live in and feed me from your own earnings, then I will not refuse to come.

Answer

Giving the wife a separate dwelling is wajib. What is meant by a dwelling is that there be a room or chamber in which no one else resides, even if others share the courtyard and other necessities. If the husband does not give such a chamber, the wife has the right to refuse to live together with the husband’s relatives, and the husband has no right to compel the wife to live…

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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