Men Are in Charge

After that, from verse 34, begins the discussion of the interaction of male and female, of husband and wife, and of the nature of men and women in general — which there is not the space to go into in depth here. It is otherwise a very profound verse, which everyone should read and understand. Unfortunately there are aspects of it that are misunderstood and misapplied, and much abuse follows from that.

That is: men are "in charge" — that is how it may be translated — over women, or for women, because of the grace that Allah (swt) has given some over others, and because they spend upon them from their wealth. Men have thus been given a certain authority, a certain charge — a certain responsibility, it may be called. In the family paradigm of Islam, the man is the head of the household. This does not mean head of the household in the sense that he comes in and sits upon a throne — the special armchair, or the special massage chair that costs a thousand pounds or thereabouts — and says: bring me this, bring me that, and grows very angry if it is not done. He is not meant to be a dictator; that is not the idea. The idea is that he is in charge, meaning that he is responsible. If anything goes wrong in the family, he is in charge. If there is no tarbiyah, if he does not discipline and train the household, and train the children properly, then he will be seized by the neck on the Day of Judgement. That is very important to understand. It is a responsibility. It is not a position to enjoy and abuse and take advantage of. It may be taken advantage of in the right way: I have been made the head of the household, so Allah has given me a very important mission, a very important role to play, and I want to do it properly. The best person from whom to understand this is the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), who at one time had nine wives, and children, and the way in which he dealt with them. That is the discussion; that is the idea.

And because they spend upon them — a very important characteristic — men are the ones in charge. Subḥān Allāh, there are stories of men forcing their wives to go out to work while they themselves do not. They take a menial job, or sit at home and say they are on the stock market — doing very little on the stock market in fact — while requiring their wives to hold a stable job. There is the case of a woman who called to say that she is a niqābī, she covers her face, and that her husband says he cannot find a so-called ḥalāl job in which there is no interaction between men and women, and so has forced her to go out to work. The answer to that is: get your priorities right. The man's responsibility is that he is in charge of ensuring that all the affairs of the household are taken care of. That does not mean the mother is not in charge of anything. She may be in charge of things; tasks may be delegated and various areas designated, and in many homes this works very well. So it was with Fāṭimah and ʿAlī, one of the best couples in Islam: they had a very fine distribution, ʿAlī being in charge of everything outside and bringing in the money, and Fāṭimah in charge of everything inside. Of course, adjustments have to be made: if a great deal is wanted from outside, the wife may have to take part; and if a great deal more is wanted inside, the man will have to take part in that as well. One cannot expect more than the average and then expect not to take part, making it burdensome — as when a man insists that his wife must also work full time while he does, and that she must then also do everything inside the house. But the main thing is that men must spend. That is why a great imbalance arises when the wife brings in the money and the husband brings in none; he is not contributing. And so it creates an enormous emotional and psychological imbalance.