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MARRIAGE

Marriage is the institution through which a man and a woman pair off and legitimately unite to form one unit of humanity.  It is a root which branches off into the known blood relations such as maternity, paternity and fraternity and their ever widening circles of blood relatives referred to in Islam as the 'relations of the womb'.

Marriage is mandatory in Islam for whoever can afford it.  Commenting on a group of people who wanted to devote all their time for worship and thought they had no time for marriage and the duties it would impose on them, the prophet peace be upon him said:

"Marriage is my tradition.  He who rejects my tradition is not of me." (Bukhari; Muslim)

Indeed marriage has been described as half of the religion.  The Prophet said:

"Whomever God has bestowed upon th eblessing of the good wife, then God secured for him one half of his religion.  So let him heed God in the other half."   (Tabarani; Hakim)

"The best blessing the believer reaps after piety of God is a pious wife."  (Ibn-Maga)

The Quran points out to the prophet that marriage was the tradition that God prescribed to previous messengers:"We did send apostels before you and appointed for them wives and children..."  (13:38)

There are two main functions of marriage in Islam explicitly pointed out in the following two verses, and at the risk of repetition, we emphasize that Islam insists that marriage is the only legitimate venue for subserving these two functions.  The first function is the unison between the two halves  yearning to one another and attracted spiritually by the free choice of one another and physically by the call of the sexual drive seeking its legitimate expression. God considers this as one of His signs: "Amongst His signs is that He created consorts for you from amongst yourselves, so that you may find tranquility with them, and (He) set love and compassion between you. Verily in this are signs for people who reflect." (30:21)

The second function is a corollary of the first and emanates from it. It is the preservation of the species by procreation: "And God has created for you consorts from amongst yourselves, and out of your consorts He created children and grand children for you, and provided you out of His bounty will they then believe in vain things and be ungrateful to God's favours?" (16:72)

Both functions are essential, and a marriage contracted with the preset condition of 'no sex' or 'no pregnancy' is Islamically blemished, as we explained before.