When a decline sets in in any society, the weaker elements, which stand in need of protection and safeguarding, suffer to a greater degree than the sturdier elements. Muslim society has been no exception. During its period of decline women suffered even more than men. Their position and interests were neglected and encroached upon, rather than supported and protected. They often became victims of man’s greed, rapacity and passion, though outward forms were still sought to be preserved. Compliance with legal requirements, when they could not be circumvented with impunity, was often purely literal and sometimes served only as a cloak for deception and fraud. The spirit of equity and good conscience suffered a severe setback and men, instead of being watchful guardians over women and ever mindful of their duty to their Lord, became the exploiters of the fairer but weaker sex.
In the Islamic system woman, as an heir to her parents, husband and children and being entitled to a settlement as part of her marriage contract, could occupy a position of comparative economic security. She was often deprived of her rights of inheritance, the payment of her dower was neglected, and when paid it was in many cases appropriated by her guardian. So much did this become the norm in some sections of Muslim society that the dower began to be described by non-Muslim writers as the purchase price for the wife paid by the husband to her guardian. Educational standards deteriorated, again, more grievously among women than among men and, in consequence, among the poorer sections women often remained unaware of their legal rights and knew not how to secure and enforce them.
In the matter of the dissolution of marriage also, the position of women was seriously weakened. The safeguards provided by the Quranic jurisprudence were ignored, the moral injunctions were repudiated in practice, and even the letter of the law was whittled down to suit the caprice and convenience of the husband. The lengthy process of divorce, designed to provide frequent opportunities of reconciliation, was telescoped and the continuation of a marriage became dependent upon the sweet will and pleasure of the husband. The wife’s right to demand a dissolution [khul’a] coextensive under the law with that of the husband, but requiring recourse to the Qazi so that the wife’s position and property rights might be fully safeguarded-was permitted to fall into disuse.
The permission to marry more women than one at a time, subject to a maximum of four, designed to make provision for certain contingencies, was converted into a licence for self-indulgence. The strict condition of equality of treatment, “and should you be afraid that you may not be able to maintain equality between them, then marry only one” (4:4) was ignored altogether. The only restraint was imposed by the economic resources of the husband, and in many cases even this failed to operate.
Dissolution of marriage at the will of the husband, combined with the legal recognition of simultaneous marriages so long as the number of wives did not at any one time exceed four, brought the institution of marriage into contempt in certain areas and among certain sections of society, and served to divest it in a large measure of the sanctity with which Islam had sought to invest it.