Answered by Shaykh Hamza Karamali, SunniPath Academy Teacher
Is it the relied-upon position in our school that the husband does not have to pay for his wife’s medical expenses? Does the ruling change if the husband does not allow his wife to work or if he has not paid her the full dowry payment yet (mahr)?
It’s important to remember — as Imam Ghazali points out eloquently in the Ihya — that the domain of the Sacred Law is the court of this world. The chapters of marriage and divorce in manuals of Sacred Law generally treat cases where the husband and wife have taken each other to court over some serious disagreement.
The chapter of marriage in the Reliance is not meant to be an explanation of how to live a happy married life; it’s meant to tell a judge how to deal with disaster cases where the marriage is most likely headed toward divorce.
This is the context in which the rulings of spouse expenditures should be understood. Shafi`i manuals of Sacred Law say that a husband does not have to pay for his wife’s medical expenses. In other words, if a wife takes her husband to court on the basis that he is not paying for her medical expenses, the judge will rule in favour of the husband.
But a marriage is already doomed if the spouses aren’t able to solve their problems on the basis of mutual love and mercy and need to take one another to court to settle a disagreement.
Keeping this context in mind, the theoretical answer to your question is that no, it is not technically obligatory on the husband to pay for his wife’s medical expenses. This is an expense that the jurists have determined to be her own personal responsibility: women are capable of earning their own living, just as men are, and she would have to earn this money herself.
Whether or not he has paid her the full marriage payment yet is of no consequence in this regard. It is also not permissible for the husband to prevent her from going out to earn the money to pay for her medical expenses.
As for the practical answer, a husband in such a situation should remember that our beloved Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) was the most generous of all people. He said, “The generous person is close to Allah, close to people, and close to Paradise. The miserly person is far from Allah, far from people, far from Paradise, and close to the Fire.” (Tirmidhi)
Our religion teaches to help the poor and the sick when they are strangers; how should it then be with one’s own wife?
And Allah knows best.