32 or taking part in actual fighting when necessary.33 One of the Holy Prophet’s wives, Zainab, used to prepare hides and to devote the proceeds of the sale to charitable work.34 Women also helped their husbands in the labour of the field,35 served the male guests at a feast36 and carried on business,37 they could sell to and purchase from men, and men could sell to and purchase from them.38 A woman was appointed by the Caliph ‘Umar as superintendent of the market of Madīnah. But these were exceptions. The proper sphere of the woman was the house and care of the children.
The family concern must be kept going by husband and wife in mutual co-operation. The husband is mainly required to earn for the maintenance of the family, and the wife is responsible for the management of the household and the bringing up of the children. The rights of each against the other are therefore centred in these two points. The husband is bound to maintain the wife according to his means, as the Holy Qur’ān says: “Let him who has abundance spend out of his abundance, and whoever has his means of subsistence straitened to him, let him spend out of that which Allāh has given him. Allāh lays not on any soul a burden beyond that which He has given it.” (65:7).
He must also provide for her a lodging: “Lodge them where you live, according to your means” (65:6). The wife is bound to keep company with her husband, to preserve the husband’s property from loss or waste, and to refrain from doing anything which should disturb the peace of the family. She is required not to admit anyone into the house whom the husband does not like, and not to incur expenditure of which the husband disapproves (Bu. 67:87). She is not bound to render personal service such as the cooking of food, but the respective duties of the husband and wife are such that each must always be ready to help the other. The wife must help the husband even in the field of labour if she can do it, and the husband must help the wife in the household duties. Of the Holy Prophet himself, it is related that he used to help his wives in many small works of the household, such as the milking of the goats, patching his clothes,
32 Bu. 56:68.
33 Bu. 56:62, 63, 65.
34 Is. VIII. p. 93.
35 Bu. 67:108.
36 Bu. 67:78.
37 Bu. 11:40.
38 Bu. 34:67.