In the Name of Allah,
the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
Imam Ahmad Ibn
Hanbal (Rahmatullah Alaih) gave the following advice to his son on his wedding day:
Dear son, you will not attain good fortune in your home except by 10 characteristics which you show to
your wife, so remember them and be enthusiastic in acting upon them.
1. & 2. As for the first two; women like
attention and they like to be told clearly that they are loved. So don’t be
stingy in expressing your love for your wife. If you become limited in
expressing your love, you will create a barrier of harshness between you and
her, and there will be a decrease in affection.
3. Ladies hate a strict, overcautious
man, yet they seek to use the soft vulnerable one. So use each quality
appropriately. This will be more appealing for love and it will bring you
peace of mind.
4. Ladies like from their husbands what their husbands like from them, i.e. kind words, good looks, clean clothes and a
pleasant odour. Therefore, always remain in that state.
5. Indeed, the house is under the sovereignty of the woman. While she remains therein, she feels that
she is sitting upon her throne, and that she is the chief of the house .
Stay clear of destroying this kingdom of hers and do not ever attempt to
dethrone her, otherwise you will be trying to snatch her sovereignty. A king
gets most angry at he who tries to strip him of his authority, even if he
portrays to show something else.
6. A woman wants to love her husband,
but at the same time she does not want to lose her family. So do not put
yourself and her family in the same scale, because then her choice will be down
to either you or her family. And even if she does choose you over her
family, she will remain in anxiety, which will then turn into hatred towards
you in your daily life.
7. Surely woman has been created from a curved rib, and this is the secret
of her beauty, and the secret of the attraction towards her. And this is no defect in her, because ‘the
eyebrows look beautiful due to them being curved’. So if she errs, do not
rebuke her in a manner in which there is no gentleness, attempting to
straighten her; otherwise you will simply break her and her breaking, is her
divorce. At the same time do not let her off upon that mistake, otherwise
her crookedness will increase and she will become arrogant with her ego.
Thereafter, she will never soften for you and she won’t listen to you, so stay
in between the two.
8. It is in the women’s nature to be ungrateful towards their husbands and
to deny favours. If you were to be nice
to her for her whole life but you grieved her once, she will say, “I have never
seen any good from you”. So don’t let this attitude of her make you dislike her
or to run away from her. If you dislike this feature of hers, you will be
pleased with some other good habits within her, so create a balance.
9. Surely there are times when a
woman goes through some conditions of bodily weakness and fatigue of the mind. Such
that Allah has relieved her of some of her compulsory worships during that
period; Allah has totally pardoned her from praying, and has postponed the days
of fasting for her within this break to a later date until she regains her
health and becomes normal in her temperament once more. Thus, during these days, treat her in a godly manner. Just as Allah has
relieved her of the duties, you should also lessen your demands and
instructions from her during those days.
10. Last but not least, know that a woman is like a captive with you. Therefore, have mercy upon her.
Translated by Shaykh Abdul Rahim.
Source: Nikah
Explorer.
