Female Breadwinners and Male Househusbands Permitted, Wife-Beating Prohibited

Salamun alaykum, dear readers!

There is a notion that women in Islam must be housewives and cannot earn money or be the primary income earner at home.

This notion is false, therefore Muslim women should not feel guilty for making money or having a career other than housewife, and Muslim men should not feel guilty for being a stay-at-home dad or househusband, taking care of household affairs while the wife is at work.

The idea is based on verse 4:34, which tells men to be “qawamoon” (maintainers) over their spouses.

• [4:34] The men are the maintainers over the women by what God has favored some of them over some, including by what they have spent of their money…

What Does Being The Wife’s Maintainer Mean?

So this verse is saying that men are supposed to be maintainers of their women by using their wealth and resources.

The term “qawamoon” is plural for “qaim” and is derived from the noun “qiyam” which means to stand.

So the job of a “qaim” is a maintenance job, which means to keep something in good standing, or good condition when something gets broken and is in need of repair or fixing.

• An example of a “qaim” (maintainer/custodian) is a janitor who “maintains” the floors and bathrooms by cleaning them when they get dirty.

So if men are the “qawamoon” (maintainers) over the women, that does not necessarily mean that men are the only financial providers of the household and that women are not allowed to make more money than her husband.

Rather, it means if she chooses to work and earn money, but something in a woman’s finances is “broken” and needs “repair”, then her husband is supposed to use his money to help fix it and maintain her good financial condition.

And if a woman chooses to be a housewife, or she works but her income is not sufficient to pay the bills, then it is the duty of the husband to make all or most of the money needed by the household, in order to fulfill his role as the “qaim” and “maintain” the good financial condition of his wife.

But if she is a billionaire or rich career woman, for example, and never has any issue with her finances, then the amount of financial maintenance likely required by her husband is little to none, unless she somehow makes a big financial mistake and really does need as much help as she can get.

• Although if a rich woman’s husband is to be a househusband, he needs to find a way to have as much “emergency money” saved up as possible in his personal account, in case any deficiency in his rich wife’s finances somehow appears, which he needs to fix.

So in short, assigning the role of “qawamoon” (maintainer) to the man does not restrict a woman from being a wealthy career woman or being the primary income earner for the household.

Rather, it gives the wife the right to choose how much of her own money she wants to contribute to paying for household expenses, and the husband (as maintainer) is required to fill in whatever gaps are remaining in order to keep the household in good financial condition.

• So if she chooses to contribute 0% for household expenses, the he should contribute 100%. If she chooses to contribute 20%, he must contribute 80%, and so on.

And money is not the only way for men to do the role of “qawamoon” and maintain a wife’s good condition. The Quran says that men are the maintainers “by what God favored some of them over some”, which means by using any resource that is available and needed, because God favored some people with more resources than others.

• Money is just one resource among others. Other resources that a man can use to support his wife are time, attention, and emotional support, medical or first aid support, helping to relieve her stress, etc.

Wife-Beating Is Not Allowed

There is a false notion that the Quran allows wife-beating, but really that’s not true.

Many people mistranslate verse 4:34 to mean that the husband beats the wife, but that is untrue. The verse doesn’t really say to beat the wife, and it’s a mistranslation.

Let’s analyze this verse: 

• [4:34] The men are the maintainers over the women by what God has favored some of them over some, including by what they spent of their money. Thus, the righteous women are devout guardians for the unseen, like how God has guarded. But the ones whose high-handedness you fear, you shall thus advise them, desert them in the bed, and “idrib” them. But if they obeyed you, then do not seek a way against them. Indeed, God is High, Great.

The word in contention here is “idrib”, and it the command form of “daraba” which is an Arabic word with multiple meanings. In the Quran, there are multiple meanings for the word.

The meanings are:

• Strike or beat (2:60-61, 3:112, 47:4),
• to present an example (43:57, 30:28, 13:17),
• to withdraw or separate (43:5, 4:34),
• to seal or cover (18:11),
• to draw over (24:31),
• to attribute (43:17),
• to establish (57:13).

There are multiple-meaning words in English too. Just as professor Edip Yuksel said, “Many tried to ‘beat’ around the bush to ‘beat’ the problem generated by the word ‘beat’ of 4:34”.

Obviously, if any word has multiple meanings, context clues must be use to find out the correct meaning of the word.

The word in 4:34 can’t be “beating” for a few reasons: 

• If the verse commanded us to beat the wives, it would violate some Quranic principles. One is verse 2:187, which says that the spouses are like garments for each other (in that they warm each other with love and affection, among other ways), and wife-beating is absolutely contrary to this.  

• We are told in verse 30:21 that affection and mercy should exist between the spouses, and beating is counterproductive to both.  

• Also, we are told in verse 4:128 that reconciliation is the best option. How then can beating be allowed if it decreases the chance of reconciliation? 

• The very next verse after this one (4:35) discusses what to do in case the couple fears a split between each other. We can therefore reasonably infer that the previous things mentioned in 4:34 were to calm things down, rather than inflame tensions by beating.  

The only meaning that makes sense in the case of high-handedness is to separate/withdraw from them to give them space and let them calm down.

What Does Nushuz Mean? Are Women Supposed to Obey Their Husbands?

Some have said that verse 4:34 commands women to obey their husbands, because 4:34 discusses “nushuz” from a woman, which people interpret as disobedience.

But it cannot mean disobedience. Verse 4:128 talks about the husband committing nushuz towards the wife. So if the Arabic word nushuz meant disobedience, then who has the power in the relationship if both husbands and wives are able to commit nushuz? Does the wife disobey the husband, or does the husband disobey the wife?

Rather, the most commonly-understood (and correct) meaning of nushuz is high-handedness or behaving in an unreasonable, aggressive, domineering way.

And the way to deal with nushuz (high-handedness or domineering behavior) from the wives according to 4:34 is not to incite further aggression by beating them, but to separate from them until they have calmed down.