The rights of Illegitimate children in Islam
When a child is born out of wedlock, they have no father. According to Islamic law, the child does not inherit from the father nor does he take his last name, the vast majority of scholars held that no lineage is established between a child born out of wedlock and the biological father.” (1) He also doesn’t bear any financial responsibility towards the kid he produced outside of marriage. I suppose in our modern parlance we’d say he’s allowed to be a deadbeat daddy, since to us —even in the case of a one night stand, a woman has every right to hunt down the man she slept with, force him to take a DNA test and demand he pay child support until the kid is 18. No matter the circumstance we think the man ought to “step up” and be a dad. Before I continue to paint the Islamic view and the secular view as polar opposites let me say, a man could decide to marry the mother of his child and adopt him (or adopt him without marrying the mother or support him without marrying the mother or adopting him) and he can also choose to give 1/3 of his wealth to his illegitimate child upon his death —since 1/3 of one’s wealth can be given to anyone, nevertheless it remains his choice. And before I continue I’ll also say, I hate ever feeling like an Islamic apologist, I really don’t care if anyone (including myself) likes a particular law, I only care that it is a legitimate law from God and his messenger and then do my best to “hear and obey” as God instructs us in the Quran. With that being said, why might the Islamic view of illegitimate children actually be more logical and more empowering to women than the modern secular view?
The foundation of good parenting is marriage
One of the greatest things a parent can give their child is stability. Marriage provides a foundation for that stability. When our basic needs are met and there isn’t too much friction and chaos in our lives (children and adults), we flourish. When a child is born out of wedlock that stability is diminished. And the question becomes, is it heightened or worsened by the presence of a “baby daddy”? Well, of course, it depends on anyone’s particular relationship. But often when children are produced out of wedlock, it is an accident. Those two people may not have been in a stable or even an exclusive relationship and they have yet to form a bond that would help them do anything more than smack their bodies together, the fact that they produced a child, doesn’t suddenly make either of them responsible —especially the dad. Studies have shown that men take on more responsibility when they get married and women more so when they have children, “Marriage has a transformative effect on adult behavior, emotional health, and financial well-being—particularly for men. (Parenthood is more transformative for women.)” (2)
The man that a woman happens to have a child with is no less than a stranger after the woman gives birth as he was before the pregnancy. They weren’t married more than likely because they didn’t want to get married. There was nothing compelling enough, interesting enough, valuable enough to want the relationship to go much further than physical encounters —so why should you suddenly be stuck with him for 18 years? And why should you be forced (socially or by law) to have your child spend time with him? Should you have to pay for a mistake for the rest of your life because of a one night of your life? Through an Islamic lens, both parties are not forced into a relationship with the other because of their child, the mother has full responsibility (i.e. control) over her child, the father can choose to participate —if she allows him to.
The single mother and her fatherless child
Think about how that changes the dynamics to the woman’s favor, not her detriment. If she wants to move to another state or country she doesn’t have to check in with the father of her child. If she wants to marry, she doesn’t have to worry about the possible tension between the child’s father and her husband. If she doesn’t want the child to see the father, it’s her full right to do so. This is something, in fact, that seems to cause a lot of heartache among men with illegitimate children, they complain “she won’t let me see the kids” and the mother is seen as a horrible person for doing so. In the past, I would’ve thought the same thing —honestly, I just absorbed what everyone else said on this issue and never thought about it much myself, but now I realize the importance of viewing her actions through the particular dynamic that is her reality. She had sex to a man she’s not married to —which is to say, she had sex with someone outside of a committed relationship where she felt secure that she and her potential child would be taken care of, stable and happy (some of the basic things any woman wants from a marriage). Once she has a child, none of that suddenly changes. She changes a great deal, she experiences the child growing first hand in her womb. If she was married to the father of her child, he’d be able to experience that second hand, he becomes a father through her —unlike the woman, it’s not an independent experience. Without being married to the mother, he does not get to become a father until she delivers. Now the mother is faced with the reality of having a stranger in her child’s life, someone who didn’t experience the 9 months of parenting through her, suddenly being given full access to her child, that’s scary. She has no idea if he’s caring, loving or kind because he wasn’t there to run to the store when her pregnancy gave her weird food urges, nor was he there to rub her feet when the baby became too heavy to bear, in essence, there was never a trust built between the two, so how can she then be expected to feel safe in sending the kid to spend weekends in his house or even taking them out for a stroll.
She also knows nothing about his lifestyle either nor can she be sure her requests will be respected. When two people are married they often know a good deal about each other before marriage and continue to build on that knowledge after marriage. They also know at least something about what the other person hopes for in potential parenthood, they may not agree completely but they are able to negotiate, renegotiate and continuously try to work together for the common goal of raising their kids well —that doesn’t mean there will be no conflict, but the foundation of marriage gives them a greater ability to work through that conflict. A man and woman who simply fell into bed and created a kid, however, may live completely different lifestyles and be unattached to each other allows them to continue those lifestyles without much room for negotiation. A woman may have committed fornication one unfortunate night with a man who is a womanizer, there may be women in and out of his life at all times, but culture dictates that she has no choice but to involve him in her children’s life.
Men can’t simply “step-up”
And one thing I have found incredibly bizarre is the assumption that a man should automatically step up and take care of the child he produced out of wedlock —not that I don’t see the obvious financial benefits to the woman, but because of the fact that it seems like an unrealistic expectation. If a man has not “stepped up” to marry the mother of his child before they had sex, he’s already showed her the kind of man he is, irresponsible. Yet the issue I believe is that (some) women seem to think that men feel the same kind of innate responsibility to their child as mothers do, they don’t. Men, as I’ve mentioned before, experience fatherhood for the first 9 months of their child’s life through the mother. Brooks states in his article on absentee fathers, “The key weakness is not the father’s bond to the child; it’s the parents’ bond with each other. They usually went into this without much love or sense of commitment.” (3) Without marriage, they’re unable to fully experience what is already a second-hand experience and so it’s much harder for them to connect as strongly as the mother does to their baby and even harder for them to fulfill their role as fathers. And if we can bear a brief moment of honesty, how deeply can he ever feel a connection to those children with a woman who slept with him outside of marriage? He has no reason to assume that she hasn’t done so with other men and so there is no automatic connection between him and the child —in reality without the modern tool of DNA, he’d have no reason to believe the child is his.
And we shouldn’t forget that inheritance and financial responsibility is a two-way street. How many long-lost fathers have suddenly shown up in their successful adult kid’s life looking for a handout —through Islamic law, the illegitimate child doesn’t owe that person anything, not even recognition as their father. The child born out of illegitimacy is not responsible for his father when he reaches old age and may require financial assistance and if the son (or daughter) dies first, the illegitimate father gets no share of their inheritance.
Joan of Mad Men
Mad Men, a show that takes place in the 1960s gives us the example of Joan, while her husband was away at war she was unfaithful and produced a child with another man. She never confessed her infidelity to her husband and as far as he knows, it’s his kid. On a side note you may be thinking, well according to Islamic law wouldn’t she be punished for being an adultery? Well, in this scenario, no. No one besides her and the man she was with knows she’s been unfaithful —you’d need four witnesses catching someone in the act to accuse them of adultery or they’d have to confess willingly. Eventually, she and her husband get divorced for unrelated reasons. The biological father wants to be a part of the child’s life and she simply refuses. “Kevin’s dad is at war being a hero, that’s who I want his father to be,” it’s that simple. I don’t know the exact legality of forcing someone to take a DNA test (I’ll assume that technology either didn’t exist or was in its infancy) and demanding visitation rights in the 1960s but it was this scenario that made me realize the empowerment for women in the Islamic view of illegitimate children, she gets to decide the fate of her child and she gets to decide that the man she made a mistake with doesn’t automatically get to be a part of her child life. And she also doesn’t have to —at least not publicly, live with the shame of having been unfaithful to her husband —which would be the automatic consequence of admitting who the biological dad of her child and allowing him to be a part of his life. She gets to put it all behind her. In that scenario on Mad Men, Joan was in control of her and her child’s fate, the biological father of her child was at her mercy.
With the advent of DNA women can pursue financial support —and clearly, some women have a lot to gain by doing so, but their power is also diminished. The power of choosing who one associates with, the power of choosing where one lives, the power of choosing what your child is exposed is now hindered for the next 18 years of your life, depending on the man that may feel like more of a life sentence than a helping hand.
Raising a child on one’s own is not ideal and it’s clear that this law is another means of deterring Zina. Nevertheless, I can’t help but think that single motherhood may be more stable and beneficial than forcing a “baby daddy” to be an involved father.
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- Discussed in part here: http://seekershub.org/ans-blog/2017/05/08/when-i-was-pregnant-i-slept-with-two-different-men-do-i-need-to-confess-that/ and here: http://seekershub.org/ans-blog/2017/11/27/what-should-be-the-family-name-of-a-child-after-a-rape/
- Don’t be a bachelor: Why married men work harder, smarter and make more money, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2015/04/02/dont-be-a-bachelor-why-married-men-work-harder-and-smarter-and-make-more-money/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.308f80bedf0e
- Why fathers leave their children: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/16/opinion/why-fathers-leave-their-children.html
- Related: Marrying the mother of your child when she’s three months pregnant or less.
Art by Will Barnet
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