Elder care is increasingly important in every society. In most of the world, a female relative performs elder care at home. Nevertheless, as wives, daughters, and daughters-in-law gain access to birth control, late marriage, education, migration, and paid labor, they become less available for unpaid and underappreciated elder caregiving.<\/p>\n
Patriarchal cultures based on multi-generational families often use daughters-in- law as elder caregivers. When these families are Muslims, they sometimes seek out Islamic law in support of this elder care strategy. Muslims often maintain that one of Islam\u2019s contributions to world religions is its emphasis on women\u2019s rights; and that one of Islamic law\u2019s great attributes is how it encourages Muslims to reject tribal practices in favor of a universal Islamic community existing under a single law. If both these claims are true, Islamic law should oppose culturally appealing local elder care practices that undercut female autonomy.<\/p>\n
This article uses modern Islamic legal pronouncements [fatw\u0101s<\/em>] on the question of a daughter-in-law\u2019s obligations to perform elder care to demonstrate that contemporary Islamic jurists support a daughter-in-law\u2019s independence over her in-laws\u2019 elder care needs by clearly stating that elder care is not a wife\u2019s obligation. Nevertheless, the article also shows that the fatw\u0101s<\/em> create a situation where a wife\u2019s elder caregiving becomes her husband\u2019s benefit. Thus, in addition to declaring a wife\u2019s autonomy, the fatw\u0101s<\/em> also bind daughters-in-law in a way that transforms their work into their husband\u2019s contribution. This article uses feminist theory\u2014including Islamic feminism\u2014to explain how the fatw\u0101s<\/em> follow predictable patterns for the protection of patriarchy. Feminist theory introduces the concept of invisible labor that many societies employ to avoid acknowledging women\u2019s work. Islamic feminism then adds the particular insight that religious elites distort religious law in favor of those cultural norms that support patriarchy. In short, Islamic law as written proclaims female autonomy and yet, as interpreted, makes women\u2019s work invisible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Elder care is increasingly important in every society. In most of the world, a female relative performs elder care at home. Nevertheless, as wives, daughters, and daughters-in-law gain access to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"parent":54,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"abstract.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":"","_tec_slr_enabled":"","_tec_slr_layout":""},"class_list":["post-41","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"ticketed":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/gender-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/41","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/gender-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/gender-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/gender-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/gender-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/gender-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/41\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1868,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/gender-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/41\/revisions\/1868"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/gender-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/54"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/gender-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}