There are broadly two ways of thinking about marriage in Islamic law. The first sees it as a relationship of ownership: the husband holds effective control, reflected in his absolute right to divorce and the traditional requirement of his consent before a wife can dissolve the marriage through khula (Kecia Ali, Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam). The second sees marriage as a religious duty and moral calling (Ziba Mir-Husseini, Marriage on Trial). Neither model, on its own, adequately captures what marriage ought to look like in practice. A third way, increasingly recognised by courts and scholars, draws on both: it treats marriage as a partnership, in which the spiritual equality of husband and wife before God translates into equal rights and mutual obligations within the marriage itself. It is this partnership model that Pakistan’s superior courts have been gradually moving towards, and it is against this backdrop that the Islamabad High Court’s recent ruling on matrimonial property must be understood.

In Mst. Amara Waqas v Muhammad Waqas Rasheed and others (decided on 2 March 2026), the Islamabad High Court ruled that wives have a legal right to property accumulated during marriage under Islamic family law. Drawing on both Islamic and common law jurisprudence, Justice Kayani held that the principles of fairness require that a wife must share in the matrimonial property in addition to her other financial rights. He invoked the classical Islamic legal doctrine of partnership (shariqah), noting that where both spouses contribute to the acquisition of property, shared ownership may be recognised.

The judgment marks a significant milestone. For the first time, a superior court in Pakistan has recognised a wife’s legal right to matrimonial property and has held that the unpaid work she performs at home such as raising children, managing the household, supporting family life, has genuine economic value that the law must acknowledge. It is a landmark step forward in protecting women’s financial rights in the event of divorce in Pakistan, as argued in scholarly literature.

The judgment contributes to a growing body of Supreme Court jurisprudence that has progressively strengthened women’s rights within marriage. Recent Supreme Court judgments have reinforced this direction. In 2025, the Court held that a wife’s right to maintenance begins at the moment of marriage, not from the time she moves into the matrimonial home, and that her claim to unpaid maintenance has no time limit, since a husband’s duty to maintain his wife is a legal debt, not a moral favour. Taken together, these judgments mark a clear judicial direction: marriage in Pakistan is increasingly being formulated, via legal precedents, as a partnership between equals rather than a relationship in which the husband has superior position.

Yet the transformation is incomplete. One key area of family law that urgently needs reform is the remedy of restitution of conjugal rights. Rooted in Christian canon law and transplanted into Muslim personal law through British colonial court decisions rather than having any foundation in Islamic teaching, restitution sits uneasily with the contractual and consensual nature of Islamic marriage. In practice, it operates as a tactical weapon. When a wife files for maintenance, dower, divorce or custody of her children, her husband responds by filing a restitution petition — effectively asking the court to order her home rather than address her claims. Yet despite the incompatibility of restitution with the injunctions of Islam and its violation of the constitutional rights to dignity, equality, and non-discrimination, Pakistani courts have so far declined to strike it down. This is a striking omission that represents one of the most overdue reforms in Pakistani family law.

The recent judgments of superior courts reflect a decisive shift towards treating marriage as a partnership of equals. The restitution of conjugal rights belongs to the older, discredited model of marriage as ownership and control. It is a colonial relic that has no place in a legal order that now affirms the equal dignity and financial rights of wives. The case for abolishing the restitution remedy is as strong in Islamic law as it is in constitutional law, and the time for that judgment is long overdue.