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Fatwa CenterThe husband should refrain from his wife's family's wealth and not ask her to demand money from them
Question
My wife's father and brother are very rich men. However, they do not give my wife any financial help, given that we are not rich. They do not even give us gifts on any occasion. If her father sells a real estate, he gives its price to her brother and does not give her anything because he considers himself not responsible for his daughter after her marriage. Strangely enough, my wife does not object to her father's or brother's conduct. Is she responsible before me because of her disobedience to my orders to object to this situation? If I divorce her, would I be doing her injustice?
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allaah, the Lord of the worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah and that Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.
A Muslim should be characterized by self-restraint and contentment, and not covet what others have. Such manners maintain the Muslim's dignity. Therefore, many Ahaadeeth are narrated having this meaning. Abu Hurayrah 
narrated that the Prophet 
said: “It is better for anyone of you to take a rope and cut the wood (from the forest) and carry it over his back and sell it (as a means of earning his living) rather than to ask a person for something and that person may give him or not.” [Al-Bukhari]
He also said: “The upper hand is better than the lower hand (i.e. he who gives in charity is better than him who takes it).” [Al-Bukhari and Muslim]
There is another Hadeeth that indicates the ugliness of asking people. ‘Awf ibn Malik narrated:
We, nine, eight, or seven men, were in the company of the Messenger of Allaah and he said: “Why do you not pledge allegiance to the Messenger of Allaah?" while we had recently pledged allegiance. So we said, “O Messenger of Allaah, we have already pledged allegiance to you.” He again said: “Why do you not pledge allegiance to the Messenger of Allaah?” We stretched our hands and said, “O Messenger of Allaah, we have already pledged allegiance to you. On what things should we pledge allegiance to you?” He said: “That you would worship Allaah only and would not associate anything with Him, (and observe) five prayers, and obey – and he said one thing in an undertone – that you would not ask people for anything.” (And as a consequence of that) I saw that some of these people did not even ask anyone to pick up the whip for them if it fell down. [Muslim]
Hence, it is not good to request your wife to ask her father or brother to give her anything. She does not have to obey you in this regard. Obedience to the husband is conditioned with being asked to do a good deed. The Prophet said: "Obedience is obligatory only in what is good." [Al-Bukhari]
Scholars differed whether the father should fairly and equally distribute gifts among his children or not. Most of the scholars see that it is not obligatory upon him to give them gifts equally. Perhaps this father is following the opinion that says that it is not obligatory upon him to do so.
If this woman refused to ask her father for money, divorcing her for that reason would be against the Sharee'ah and against good morals. Her refusal is not considered a valid reason in the Sharee'ah for divorcing her. Some scholars consider divorce without a valid reason to be an unlawful act. Ibn Qudaamah 
said under the title, “Divorce without a need":
Al-Qadhi said, "There are two opinions concerning divorce without (a valid) reason: one of them says that it is unlawful because it will harm him and his wife and will waive the derived benefit from marriage without need to do so. So, it is unlawful like wasting one's wealth."
Then he mentioned the other opinion.
Allaah Knows best.
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