possible marriage to a man from Jordan

Notable Features of Legal System/ History

Marriage Age: 16 for males and 15 for females, lunar calendar; court permission required for females under 18 to marry men older by 20 years or more.

Guardianship: guardian's consent is required for marriage of a female under 18 years, but not for a divorcee or widow over 18 years

Registration: penal sanctions for those in violation of the mandatory registration requirements for marriage and divorce

Polygamy: no constraints aside from classical injunctions that a man must treat all co-wives equitably and provide them with separate dwellings; man must declare his social status in marriage contract.

Obedience/Maintenance: institution of 'house of obedience' is maintained in legislation, but without any forcible execution.

Talaq: talaq uttered while asleep, drunk, in a faint, overwhelmed (madhush), or under coercion have no effect; oaths on talaq and conditional talaq intended to coerce someone into committing or refraining from a particular act are invalid; talaq accompanied by a number in word or gesture, or repeated in a single session, gives rise to a single revocable repudiation.

Judicial Divorce: grounds on which women may seek divorce include: failure to maintain, physical desertion or husband's absence for one year or more, husband's prison sentence of three years or more; both spouses may petition on grounds of 'discord and strife', breach of a binding stipulation of the marriage contract, and various grounds associated with spouse's mental and physical health.

Post-Divorce maintenance/financial arrangements: compensation for arbitrary talaq of a maximum of one year's maintenance; classical rules requiring former husband to pay the divorcee for breastfeeding and undertaking custody of their children are maintained

Child Custody: divorcee is entitled to custody of her children until they reach puberty, subject to classical conditions; other custodians till 9 and 11 males and females.
Succession: changes to classical Hanafi law allow for spouse relict to be included in the radd of the estate; 'obligatory bequests' in favour of orphaned grandchildren is restricted to children of predeceased sons and not daughters

Notable Features in detail: 
�The minimum marriage age is 16 for men and 15 for women (all ages in the personal status law are calculated by the lunar calendar) and the Penal Code provides penalties for all those involved in carrying out underage marriages. An underage marriage can nevertheless be recognised as valid if the wife has fallen pregnant or given birth by the time of a suit to dissolve their marriage coming to court, or if both spouses have by that time reached the minimum age.

        In the event of a contract between a woman aged under 18 and a man 20 years or more her senior, the qadi is required to ascertain that the bride has freely given her consent to the marriage and that it is in her interest. The consent of the guardian is required for a female aged under 18 to marry, but not for a divorc�e or widow aged over 18; the law thus implicitly requires the consent of the guardian to the first marriage of a woman of any age, although the qadi can over-ride the wali's refusal if it has no justification in law. Criminal sanctions are provided for those violating the mandatory registration requirements for marriage and divorce.

There are no constraints on polygamy beyond the classical injunctions that a man must treat co-wives equitably and provide them with separate dwellings. The registration fee for a polygamous contract of marriage is higher than that for a monogamous union.
The marriage contract requires a man to disclose his social status to the woman he is marrying, but there is no requirement that an existing wife be notified of a subsequent polygamous marriage by her husband.[u]
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The institution of the "house of obedience" is maintained but without forcible execution of an "obedience" ruling made against the wife beyond disqualifying her from maintenance rights against her husband.

As elsewhere in the region, talaq uttered by a man who is drunk, asleep, in a faint, coerced, or 'overwhelmed' (madhush) has no effect, while oaths on talaq and conditional talaq do not give rise to talaq if the intention was to get someone to do or not do something. A "triple talaq" as in talaq accompanied by a number in word or sign or- significantly- repeated in a single session has the effect of a single revocable talaq only. To give rise to the greater finality of irrevocable talaq, three talaqs must be pronounced not only separately but in three separate sessions.

Grounds for which the wife may petition for divorce are similar to those introduced elsewhere in the region from the time of the OLFR.They include failure to maintain, physical desertion or the absence of the husband for a year or more, a prison sentence of three years or more, "discord and strife", breach of a binding stipulation in the marriage contract, and various grounds associated with the mental and physical health of the husband (the latter also being entitled to petition for divorce on similar health grounds). The law allows either party to insert stipulations into the contract and to sue for dissolution if they are broken. Either spouse may also petition for divorce on the grounds of discord and strife.

The law provides for compensation for arbitrary talaq up to a maximum of the equivalent of a year's maintenance for the wife divorced 'without legitimate cause' and retains the classical rules requiring the ex-husband to pay for his divorced wife breastfeeding and undertaking custody of their children. A divorced mother is entitled to custody of her children until they reach puberty, subject to the classical conditions. During marriage, the wife has no financial obligations for her own upkeep and her medical expenses are included in the maintenance she is due from her husband. In the area of succession, changes to classical Hanafi law have been made in allowing the spouse relict to share in the radd or proportional return of the remainder of the estate to those holding fixed shares, should circumstances so permit; and in providing for the 'obligatory bequest' (al-wasiya al-wajiba) to orphaned grandchildren, although restricting this to the grandchildren through predeceased sons, not daughters.

Hope this helps those who are going for "possible marriage to a man from Jordan"...
All the best
Regards
(Flowerinjannah)

deb568 wrote:

Amy,

It's possible that your partner told his father he was intending to marry a foreigner, and the father, not wanting this to happen, whisked his son off to Mecca to impress on him his duty to Allah AND his family.  If he had already been promised to someone in the wider family, and now wants to get out of it and marry you, this could be a very big deal and bring shame on the father's branch of the family. Despite Islam allowing 4 wives, this doesn't mean that an Arab woman would want her husband to take even a second wife, let alone a third or fourth one. Maybe in very rich families having 4 wives would be a lifestyle decision. And for sure there would be cases where the brother dies and another brother takes the widow as a second wife, just to preserve her honour and status within the family.

To me it sounds like he has gone to Mecca and come back agreeing to marry someone of his father's choosing and not his. Sorry to say, but not an unusual situation where the family feels threatened by the intrusion of foreign blood into their line.

Although this is true, it tends to occur more the man is younger and more Impressionable. In this example, given the man's age and life experiences, I doubt this is the case.