Family wants to cover daughter's loose behavior by marrying her off, but her mother objects
16-5-2005 | IslamWeb
Question:
My question is about a marriage that is causing a big problem in a family. A guy has proposed to the father for his daughter's hand in which the father accepted since both the girl and boy are going steady already even against the girl's parents' wish. This is to avoid any more gossip in the community and also they cannot do anything about it because of their daughter's hardheadedness. But till now, the girl's mother refused to accept the boy's proposal due to the boy's attitude/background. And this has cause distress in the family with the mother threatening to cut off ties with her daughter since she can never accept the boy as a son-in-law. The engagement is still on because of the father's and the girl's brothers' acceptance but this is causing almost a daily argument within the household. In this case, what could be done? The mother's view is quite reasonable because of the boy's attitude and the fact that they did something before which made the girl's parents disagree like dating/going out on their own without any companion. But the problem is the girl's insistence to get married to the boy. Also the community knows about their relationship already. Do you think such marriage should push through or should they be separated since what they did before was a sin? Unfortunately, the girl has a reputation (with boys before) which is also one of the reason the men in her family decided to marry her off to the boy to avoid any more bad talks about her in the community.
Answer:
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger. We ask Allaah to exalt his mention as well as that of his family and all his companions.
One has to endeavour to convince the mother to accept this marriage, and the people whom she respects should endeavour to do so and remind her that it is more beneficial to marry her off to this man. The Prophet 
said: "Nothing can be more beneficial for those in love than marriage." [Ibn Maajah] Refusing this marriage could cause a greater harm as the devil may lure them to committing what Allaah has forbidden like fornication and the like, so refusing their marriage is helping the devil to lure them. Thus if the mother agrees, all perfect praise be to Allaah, otherwise if it is feared that not marrying her to him would cause a greater harm, it is more appropriate to marry her off and seek to please the mother as much as possible.
Allaah knows best.