What Mahr is...and isn't

Mahar is not a ratings system for suitors nor does it denote the price that a woman is asking for herself as a bride like a commodity in the market. This view shows how materialistic thinking has seeped into our mentality and estranged us from a genuine Islamic understanding. Look. When you propose marriage, you are recommending yourself as the new qawam for a woman who has been more often than not living under the qawama of her father. He has taken care of her her entire life.

He has a proven track record of being able to reliably bear that responsibility. You have no track record, nor does anyone else who's seeking her hand in marriage, not in comparison with her current qawam. The mahr, at least in part, is a gesture to demonstrate your seriousness and capability of providing for this woman, to assure her that she can transfer herself from her father's authority to yours and remain secure financially. Remember that once you're married, you have more right over her than her own father. And also remember that it was the practice of Rasulullah to arrange sufficient provision for his family to cover their expenses for an entire year.

Now her father has been covering her expenses for decades. Now you're asking her to live under your roof, under your authority, to transfer her dependence from her father to you. Any reasonable woman would ask for a mahr high enough to sufficiently demonstrate that you are in a position to take on the responsibility of that amana. And frankly, if you're going to propose marriage without having already saved money in preparation for that, then you're not ready to marry. She's not rating you with the amount of her mahr.

She's rating the value of the provision she has enjoyed her entire life under her current qawam, her father, and she's setting a figure that can reasonably justify the transferal of that trust to you or anyone else. Now as for the argument that she should actually desire you enough to be willing to marry without a mahr, where she shouldn't even know you like that. And desire is not a sound basis for marriage. So if she's willing to marry without a mahar or she's willing to accept a far below average mahar, it doesn't bode well for the marriage. Said that the marriage that has the least expense involved is the most blessed, but that has to do with the individual piety of the woman, her tawakkul, her commitment to live a life of material simplicity, and what she values in a qawam.

A more religious woman will typically ask for less in terms of mahr because, generally, she's not materialistic and her financial needs will be fewer. And of course marriage to a pious religious woman will always be more blessed overall. Now it's true, just as a lot of men misunderstand the mahr, many women do too. There are a lot of women who see the mahr as a price, and they think they're worth millions. But here's exactly why mahr can't be a price because they are worth millions.

Any woman is worth millions as is any man. We are priceless, but we are not products in a market with a quantifiable monetary value. So if a girl is asking for a mahr that's radically above the cost of living, she's not someone that you should really wanna marry anyway because, yes, that girl is commodifying herself and thereby demonstrating that she's not wife material. But the same is true of any man who expects to pay far below the average rate of a mahr. He's demonstrating that he doesn't take the amana seriously and therefore is not husband material and not ready to be qawam.