Discussion of the wife’s maintenance and the amount due to her will appear—if Allah wills—in the “Chapter on Maintenance.”

Al-Marʿī said in al-Inṣāf: “According to the soundest view of the school, the wife is not obliged to knead dough, cook, or the like; this was explicitly stated and is the position of most Hanbalī scholars.”

Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn [Ibn Taymiyyah] maintained: “She must do whatever is customarily expected from a woman of her standing for a man of his standing.”

Al-Marʿī further wrote in al-Inṣāf: “The correct course is to refer the matter to the custom of the locality.”

Shaykh ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Saʿdī said: “The sound opinion is that each spouse must treat the other in a manner recognised as proper. Cooking, baking, household service, and similar tasks are therefore incumbent upon the wife so long as this is the prevailing custom.”

Shaykh ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad commented: “Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn’s formulation—that ‘she is required to do what is customary for a woman of her standing toward a man of his standing’—is among the finest statements on the issue.”

The hadith addresses the problem of nushūz (a wife’s willful defiance), for marriage in Islamic law is a solemn covenant and a firm bond by which Allah joins a man and a woman; each then becomes a spouse after having been single. Allah the Exalted says, “And they have taken from you a solemn covenant” (Q 4:21). This “solemn covenant” is the marriage contract itself—the strongest of all contracts.

Beyond the contract lies a relationship in which Allah has made each spouse suited to the other, meeting the innate psychological, intellectual, and physical needs of the other. Each finds with the other comfort, reassurance, and stability; in their union lie repose, sufficiency, affection, and mercy. Their emotional, nervous, and physical make-up is designed so that the longings of each are fulfilled in the other, their hearts are brought together, and they ultimately blend in order to found a new life expressed in a new generation.

These realities are captured in His words: “And among His signs is that He created for you, from yourselves…” (Q 30:21).