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Fatwa CenterMuslim girls want protection from promiscuous fiancés and husbands
Question
I want to know whether Islam allows husbands to lie to their wives. I also want to know if a person has the right to ask his/her future marriage partner about his/her physical experience with previous partners. What I believe is that in Islam a divorced girl gets less Mahr than a virgin. If the girl wants to marry someone who never had intercourse, how can she ask the suitor about this issue? Although both Muslim men and women are to preserve chastity, Muslim men are taking advantage of the fact of not having hymen to have all sorts of sexual relationships before marriage, hiding them from their selected fiancé and later spreading sexually transmitted diseases. So how can we, Muslim girls, protect ourselves from this hypocrisy?
Answer
Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds; and may His blessings and peace be upon our Prophet Muhammad and upon all his Family and Companions.
1) Basically lying is forbidden but Islam allows it in some exceptional cases such as telling lies to the spouse to preserve family life from being ruined. Here the purpose of this permission is to guard the benefits and block the harms that could be caused otherwise. However, a husband should not lie unless there is a real necessity, and should avoid it by using illusive words if possible.
2) A person is not allowed to ask his/her spouse about his/her past romantic life since it is contrary to the ruling of Shariah that encourages the covering of oneself and the avoidance of disclosing past bad actions.
Moreover, doing so may sow disagreement, doubts and may increase hatred between spouses, and consequently it may lead to an unhappy marital life.
3) Your statement that a previously married woman gets less Mahr is not correct. A previously married woman and a virgin are the same in the matter of Mahr. Although many virgins get less Mahr than the previously married woman, generally a virgin gets more Mahr since a man may be interested in her more so than a previously married woman. Such a matter depends on the customs and culture and is not related to Shariah.
4) The matters you raised about men apply to non-religious persons. As for pious and religious Muslims they never dare indulge in such major sins. Thus, one may discover the reality of a person by observing his steadfastness and religiousness. However, if a person (man or a woman) had committed sin and thereafter they made sincere repentance, their bad past is overlooked and has no effect.
Men do not have to prove the matter of past sins or their virginity. Those who do not fear Allah may commit sins but those who fear Allah observe His surveillance and do not commit sins even if they have the chance to do so.
Your opinion that men carry sexual disease generally may apply to irreligious men; that is why Islam puts the quality of piety first when choosing a suitor.
However, it is the right of a man and a woman to ask his/her prospective spouse to undergo a full physical checkup to be satisfied about his/her health. It is even recommended in places where dissoluteness or weakness of religion is widespread.
As for how to protect us from this hypocrisy, the answer is that one should not marry except a good and religious man.
Allah knows best.
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