Suitability in Marriage: What Counts in It and the Effect of Its Absence
Which qualities count towards suitability between the spouses, to whom does the right to it belong, and what effect does its absence have on the contract?
Suitability is a right of the woman and her guardians, and it is reckoned on the man's side in six matters: lineage, the Islam of his forebears, freedom, religion, means, and trade. If she marries herself to one who is unsuitable without her guardian's consent, the position adopted for fatwa is that the contract is not valid at all; in the manifest narration (ẓāhir al-riwāyah) it is valid and the guardian may object until she gives birth.
Suitability is reckoned in two things: religion, and freedom from the defects that give rise to the option of annulment. Lineage, trade and wealth are not reckoned. It is a right of the wife and her guardian: if she is married to one who is unsuitable she may annul, and if she and her guardian both consent the contract stands.
Suitability is a right of the wife and her agnatic guardians, reckoned in five qualities: religion, lineage, freedom, trade, and freedom from the defects that establish the option of annulment; and on one view means is added to these. If the guardian marries her to one who is unsuitable with her consent and that of the remaining guardians of equal rank, it is valid; if one of them does so without the others' consent, or a father marries his virgin daughter to one who is unsuitable without her consent, it is not valid on the more evident view.
Suitability is a right of the wife and of all the agnatic guardians, reckoned in five matters: religion, lineage, freedom, trade and means. Its absence does not void the contract but gives the option of annulment to whichever of them did not consent — except in religion, where one narration holds the contract void if a chaste woman is married to a man of open sin.