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Monday, 30 April 2018

Can a father force his child to get married? Is it a sin if he doesn't?

Recently came across a few hadith that I hadn't seen before, and I wanted to know if anyone could shed some light on them.

"Three matters should not be delayed; prayer when its time comes, burial when the funeral has arrived, and the marriage of a single woman when a well-suited man has proposed."

Abu Sa'id and Ibn Abbas narrated that the Prophet (PBUH) said: "Whoever has a child, he should give him a good name and teach him how to read and write. And when he matures, he should marry him off. When he matures and the father does not marry him off, then if the boy commits a sin, the sin will be on the father." (Shu'ab al-Iman of al-Bayhaqi)

Umar ibn al-Khattab and Anas ibn Malik narrated that the Prophet (PBUH) said: "It is written in the tawrah that whose daughter reaches the age of 12 and he fails to marry her off, then if she commits a sin, the sin will be on the father."

The way I immediately interpreted them was that if a person wants to get married, but their father denies the marriage for some small or un-Islamic reason, then the sin's on the father. However, my friend (who sent me these hadith) told me that it doesn't matter what the opinion of the child is - if they remain unmarried, then any of their sins are sins on the parent as well. Her reasoning was that marriage is fard anyway and the hadith doesn't specify anything about the child consenting or not.

However, I am fairly sure that marriage is only fard under certain circumstances and is otherwise a highly recommended sunnah. Additionally, isn't it the case that a forced marriage isn't considered valid? And if the father does try his best to convince his child to marry, but for some reason the kid doesn't want to, isn't it extremely unfair for him to keep incurring sins?

Lastly, is it really the case that we have to marry our daughters off at 12? Or was the Prophet (PBUH) simply commenting on what the Torah said?

Would appreciate some insight on these hadith, jazakhallah.

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