Married Women Right to Dower and Maintenance, Gap between Theory and Practice

Abstract

Pakistan being an Islamic and republic state to advance and protect women's rights generally has assembled many laws e.g. right to equality, right to hold property, right to education, protection against discrimination on the basis of gender etc. Special legislation was also made for the protection of women rights. This paper specifically deals with the financial rights that women are entitled to receive after marriage, the dower and maintenance, the significance of these rights in Islamic law, the laws that are made to safeguard these rights and factual situations regarding the implementation of these rights with special reference to Khyber Pukhtoonkhwa Province of Pakistan. Islam's precepts are misunderstood. Dower and maintenance were not viewed by society as a husband's legal obligations, but rather as a ritual associated with marriage. The paper also deals with how society is responding when those rights are claimed by women, the agonies suffered by women while they go through the legal contest for years against their husbands or children in obtaining these rights, main reasons for such resistance and what could be done to improve the situation.