What is yours is yours and what is your husband’s is his. You may say all those things you are fond of saying out of love and for the sake of romance but marriage doesn’t transfer ownership.
You should also learn to be wise when in the throws of love especially when the love is still new. Do not buy things in your spouse’s name unless you are giving it as a gift to them. When you jointly buy any item in the house whoever has his or her name on the receipt owns it.
In the early days of marriage people do many unnecessary things that sometimes turns out a bad decision because they never envisaged things like death or divorce, so they assumed everything was going to remain blissful all through. We have seen so many complicated scenarios that arise from such unwise decisions. Love with your head not your heart. What is yours is yours, and what is his is his, except what he gives you as a gift. Of course you may have access to use your husband’s properties at will depending on the kind of relationship between you two, but that doesn’t make them yours.
What If You Fall In Love Again, Though Married? By A. Haroun
Also, a husband has no power to force his wife to transfer ownership of any of her property to him. A man had to move in to the house his wife built, for some reasons I can’t quite remember. He said it was an insult to live in a house built by his wife so he instructed her to transfer ownership to him as the man of the house. It became a raging storm in her marriage and almost became as though she had to chose between succumbing to the husband’s demands or lose her marriage. She eventually had to let her husband ‘rob‘ her of her own house. There are many weird marriage stories out there.
Marriage is a beautiful union between two people, but as far as Islām is concerned, it doesn’t make you both become one. There are things you share in common and still points of differences. Do not exaggerate it beyond what it is.
A. Haroun writes from Abuja, Nigeria.
