Can we get married without the consent of the husbands parents? [closed]

Question

Assalamualykum

Please advise as a matter of urgency ?

I am a 29 year old Female , I was married when I was 18 and I have a child which is already 9 years old. I got divorced in 2011 as my X husband was taking drugs, I suffered much in my past life .

I found a guy this year but he is originally from india , he lives in My country that is South Africa. He is 24 years of age and we fell deeply in love and he comes home to my house , he resides with sister in laws who he works for and stays with them too, I have never met them as they don't really consider me coming to they house as I am not of they culture etc etc.

This guys has decided that we going to marry in January 28th 2017, he came home spoke to my family about marriage etc. he even paid half for our honeymoon and I have also arranged a few things my side and everybody knows we getting married , including his sister in laws and the people at my work and neighbours family etc.

At first during about a month ago his mum cried saying he must not get married to me as I was married before and I have a child. He tried to convince them and this is also after he met my family, then he advised he rather marry me and then convince them.

Then we were in preparation for the wedding and 3 weeks ago his father called and cried telling his sister in laws that if he decided to get married to me then they must kick him out of the business and they will disown him.

But everybody knows we were going to get married besides his parents as he advised he will convince them later on and we will get people speaking to them about our marriage.

His sisters in laws are not straight people , they never meet me but advising the parents wrong things about me etc like I am a south African and I will not allow they son to see them and I am 4 years elder then him.

He still loves me but dissapointed me saying we cannot marry as his parents are crying and don't want me because im elder then him and was married before. I came out from a very difficult past as mentioned earlier and he never came once to my house and decided that , we met few times and a wedding was about to take place.

He still loves me and wants to marry me but is telling me now we have to wait for his parents to agree or else he cant ?

But this after he advised we will convince them after marriage.

I am suffering with trauma , have to face people daily at work and community because we were about to get married. I lost my dad when I was young so my mum and everybody is stressed out on this.

What was the right thing for him to ?

Jazkallah Yumnah

Answer 1

Wa Alaikum As Salam.

Dear sister.. a few points:

• Per Islam, the only consent needed is of the woman getting married, the man getting married and the woman's mahram (Islamic legal guardian). Consent of the man's parents is not needed. A marriage would be valid without it.
• Despite being valid otherwise, it's more respectful and considerate to take your parents' input into consideration. There is a hadith [Bukhari (3364)] which describes Prophet Isma'il عليه السلام divorcing women upon his father disapproving of them.. even though he didn't have to do that. So it's perfectly fine for him to call off the proposal/marriage due to his parents disapproving.
• On the other hand, parents themselves ought to base their acceptance/rejection on the Deen (whether a person is religiously committed, good character, etc) and not on things like race/ethnicity. His idea to get them to reconsider/convince them otherwise is a good one [unless they have legitimate reasons for rejection].

As a Muslimah, will you not want your husband's family to get along well with you? Married life is so much easier when they are not at your throat and hating you. Another point for you to think about.