Can someone please shed some light on what I am supposed to do and what my rights are? Also, if there are any reliable books one can recommend regarding the topic I would be grateful because I am extremely confused and worried.
I got engaged in Dec 2007 (wedding was delayed a couple times). Before the engagement, my father asked my fiancé to sit down and discuss the matter of mahr with him. My fiancé refused any discussion regarding mahr whatsoever saying that he had relinquished that authority over to his father (my future FIL). Therefore, my father went to my FFIL and they had dialogue regarding mahr. The father’s side of my family always sets the same amount for all the girls to be paid throughout her lifetime (deferred payments) in any form – jewelry, money, property, etc. This has been going on for generations. I believe it is called mahr al-mithl? At first, my fiance’s father was not happy with it but later he reluctantly agreed. My fiancé was sitting there as well. My father would not have agreed to this marriage had this agreement not been made and he made that clear. In addition, he told my fiancé and his family that he had been to weddings before where the mahr had been set beforehand and, come time for the nikkah, the groom decides something else and he did not want this type of scenario to occur. His family laughed it off and assured my father it wouldn’t.
Now, I am a couple weeks away from my wedding. The halls have been paid for, arrangements are complete, and my family from all over the globe have bought plane tickets to attend my wedding. Today my fiancé calls me and says he needs to speak to me regarding the mahr. He tells me that he is not comfortable with what my mahr is set at and says he may have made an error when he relinquished his right to decide on it to his father. He continues to tell me that he would now like to change it to 1/3 of what it is set at and addition wants to add past gifts to that total. I was completely content with what my father set my mahr as. It is a deferred mahr and I do not believe that it is an excessive sum that cannot be paid throughout a life time. I, fact, I have student loans that far exceed the amount the mahr was set at. Besides, not only was he sitting there when the mahr was agreed upon and not protest, nearly 1 ½ years has elapsed since then and our nikkah is right around the corner. I also thought that once the mahr was decided upon that it became binding and couldn’t be changed (or is this only after nikkah it can’t be changed?).
Now I feel pressured. My fiancé is saying if I don’t change the mahr he will never have any respect for my father for having set that amount, and if I cared for him at all and I wanted to marry him I would change it to make him happy. I am worried because my father agreed to the wedding after all his conditions (the mahr, me being allowed to finish my studies, etc) were met. Can my fiancé do this? I feel that maybe him and his parents agreed initially only knowing that they would say they want to change it when time came closer to the marriage and when they felt I was stuck. In fact, he has told me that there is nothing that my parents and I can do if he wants to change the mahr amount because it is now too late for my parents to turn around and cancel the wedding and IF we don’t agree to the amount he wants to give then he will walk away leaving my parents having had already paid for the wedding expenses.
