for one who lacks the means to provide a dowry yet is in genuine need of marriage. Once that need is manifest he is taken at his word and no oath is required. It is forbidden for him to have intercourse with a slave woman who belongs to his son. According to the relied-upon view, a dowry is still due to one of them, and if he causes her to conceive the child is free and fully affiliated. If she had already been an umm walad (a slave who has borne her master a child) for the son, she does not acquire that status with the father; otherwise, the weightier opinion is that she does. He must then pay her market value together with a dowry, though—not the value of the child—according to the sounder view. As for her marriage, if a man were to acquire ownership of his father’s slave wife—who is unlawful for him—the marriage is not dissolved, according to the more correct opinion. He may not marry a slave woman who is under a contract of manumission (mukataba); but if he acquires a mukatab (a male slave under such a contract) who is the spouse of his master, the marriage is annulled according to the stronger opinion.

Section

When a master gives permission for his slave to marry, the master is not liable for the dowry or maintenance under the predominant (new) position. Both are taken from the slave’s earnings—regular or occasional—after the marriage. If the slave has leave to trade, the costs are met from the profit in his possession and, in the sounder view, from the original capital as well. If he has neither earnings nor authorization to trade, the liability rests on the slave himself, although one opinion places it on the master.

The master may travel with him, thereby depriving the wife of conjugal access; yet if he does not travel, he must free him at night for conjugal relations and may employ him by day provided he undertakes the dowry and maintenance. Otherwise, he must release him to earn them himself. Should the master use him without taking on that liability, he owes whichever is less: the normal wage or the combined amount of the dowry and maintenance; another opinion obliges him to cover both outright.

If the slave contracts an invalid marriage and consummates it, a dowry equivalent to that of her peers becomes a debt upon him; another view attaches it to his person, meaning it is payable from his value.

When the master marries off his female slave, he may use her for service during the day and must hand her over to the husband at night; in that case the preponderant view is that the husband owes no maintenance. If the master sets aside a room in his own house and tells the husband he may have privacy with her there, he likewise incurs no liability, according to the more correct opinion. The master may travel with her, and the husband may accompany her.

The authoritative position is that if the master kills her, or she kills herself, before consummation, her dowry is forfeited. By contrast, if a free woman kills herself, or if a third party kills the slave woman, or she dies, the dowry is not forfeited—just as it is not voided if either woman dies after consummation.

If a master sells a married female slave, the dowry belongs to the seller; and if she is divorced before consummation, half of it belongs to him. When the master marries his female slave to his male slave, no dowry is due.