February 14, celebrated as the day of love in many parts of the world, offers an opportunity to reflect on a concept often sidelined in the Islamic marriage system. Does love have a place in this structure? Can a woman, defined by obedience and submission in a one-sided contract, truly experience love? And can a man, who has the right to take a new wife whenever he pleases, truly understand love?
In Islamic marriage, love is not the foundation; rather, it is based on a legal transaction. The woman offers her body and obedience in exchange for financial support and a dowry. This relationship is not an emotional bond but an economic exchange, where the woman is treated as a commodity, and the man as the owner. A man, with just a few words, takes possession of a woman, and from that moment on, she must obey and submit. Any notion of love within this system is an illusion that forces the woman to accept her servitude.
How can one speak of love when a man can legally abandon his wife at any moment and replace her without remorse? How can a woman feel secure when she knows she may be replaced by someone younger, more beautiful, or simply different? Can love, perpetually under threat of destruction, truly be called love?
In this system, men are free to experience new relationships without facing consequences. If a man becomes tired of his wife, instead of repairing the relationship, he simply takes another. This freedom, granted by religion, allows him to avoid emotional commitment. Meanwhile, the woman, even if she is trapped in a loveless marriage, is condemned to stay. She not only has no right to experience new love, but even thinking about it is considered a crime.
Here, the man is always the owner of love, and the woman, always its beggar. She must remain faithful to a man who may abandon her at any time, with no guarantee of reciprocal love. Her love becomes a gamble, a gamble over an emotion that could be shared with another woman or disappear entirely.
The crucial question is: Can a man raised in such a system truly love? Can someone who sees women as replaceable, and knows he can abandon his wife at any time, truly fall deeply in love? Love requires commitment, continuity, and exclusivity. In Islamic marriage, none of these elements exist. A man doesn’t need commitment because other options are always available. He doesn’t need continuity because he can end the relationship at any time. And most importantly, the woman is never unique to him. She is just one of many choices.
This system deprives women of love and allows men the freedom to enjoy multiple relationships without emotional commitment. The woman, in turn, is condemned to experience love within a framework that values none of her emotions. She must endure the pain of legal infidelity in silence, live in fear of being replaced, and invest in a relationship designed from the beginning to never be in her favor.
February 14 is a day for lovers, but for women in the Islamic marriage system, it only serves as a reminder of something they will never fully experience: love with security, respect, and equality; love in which a woman is seen as an independent human being, not a replaceable object; love where one person is chosen forever, not someone who can be replaced at any moment. Unless this structure changes, women in Islamic societies will remain longing for a love that was never meant for them in the patriarchal system of Islamic marriage.
