|
The
son is for the second husband and the missing husband has
the right of option
Question:
A husband was missing for a long time, to the point that his
wife had thought he had died. His wife, therefore, married
another man and had a child from him. After some years, the
first husband returned. Does the wife now stay with the second
husband or is that marriage dissolved? Does the first husband
have the right to ask for his wife back? If he does, do they
have to perform a new contract?
Response:
This is the issue of the marriage of the wife of a missing
husband. [This is the case where] the husband is missing and
searched for over a long period of time, it is concluded that
he is dead, the woman marries somebody else and then the husband
reappears. He then will have the choice of keeping the new
marriage in tact or in having his wife returned to him. If
the new marriage is left in tact, the matter is clear. The
contract is valid. If he does not choose that and he wants
his wife back, the wife is returned to him.
However,
he cannot have intercourse with her until she finishes her
waiting period from the second husband. There is no need to
make a new contract for the first husband because there was
nothing that invalidated the previous contract. As for her
child from the second husband, it is a legal child and will
be ascribed to its father because the child was the result
of a proper marriage.
Shaykh
Ibn 'Uthaymeen
Fataawa al-Mar.ah
|
