Here is the reply I wrote. A Part of Islam - specially when it is a established Sunnah practiced by all the Anbiya esp by our Beloved Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu alayhe wassallam and practiced by all the Sahaba will be encouraged no matter what. If a sunnah is made evil and unpracticable by the mindset of the society, it needs to be more encouraged in general. Individual circumstances come afterwards. Every person can think for himself whether he needs to follow a sunnah or not. In every sunnah, there is a special type of blessing and benefit. The grave effects are also specific to leaving that special sunnah. Take miswaak for example. Miswaak is a sunnah - Sunnah Muakkadah. By using it we gain many spiritual benefits as well as worldly. Both are explained in Hadith by our beloved Prophet Muhammad sallalahu alayhe wassalam - he said that Miswaak is a way to please your Rabb and a tool for cleanliness of the mouth. Leaving this sunnah will lead to problems specific to this sunnah. It will cause problems in the teeth. If a sunnah is thought to be as bad in society, do you leave it or do you encourage it? Do you stop mentioning it or do you revive it's mention? If you stop mentioning it, it will be forgotton after some time just like Ta'addud. One brother from SF was telling me how he didn't know that ta'addud is a sunnah. How do you get the AJR of 100 Shaheeds for reviving a dead sunnah? What does reviving a dead sunnah means? To revive it in a time when people have either forgotten it OR people think bad about it. Similarly, we don't leave a sunnah just because society hates it and people don't like it. This thinking is the same as those modernists who adopt a maazrat khwahana (apologetic) attitude on Islam when people object on some parts. There are countless examples but the best is: Islam spread by sword or Akhlaaq? Now we go on the backfoot and try to justify and make excuses. What we have to do is stand up with our heads high and tell them YES, Islam was implemented in half the world by Sword. And yes, Majority of Makkah entered Islam in great numbers when Our Nabi went to Makkah as a soldier not as a da'ee. We think that Akhlaaq only means to say Yes sir. When you are weak you will say Yes sir, what else can you do? Forgiving everyone when you have power is the real quality of Islam. When Rasool Allah sallalahu hu alay he wassallam conquered Makkah BY FORCE, the mushrikeen were afraid of what will happen to them because they had expelled Rasool Allah sallalahu alayhe wassallam from Makkah. What did our Nabi do? He said, I will say to you what Yusuf said to his brothers: لا تثريب عليكم اليوم... There is no accusation on you today. And then he announced that whoever enters the house of Abu Sufyan will be spared, whoever enters Kaaba will be forgiven, whoever closes his door will be given peace. But still there were some mushrikeen who were killed while they were clung to the walls of Kaaba. As I was saying, some problems arise by leaving specific sunnahs and they are cured only by following those sunnats. Ta'addud is not the only way to help the widows and divorcees but it is the best way to help them. A woman doesn't only need money and orphans don't just need shelter houses to live in. They need fatherly figures to guide them and protect them. A woman needs companionship. This suggestion is in line with Quran and Sunnah. Yes single men can also marry divorcees but if they do, then who will marry the virgin girls? This whole problem of marriage we see around us is the result of leaving the sunnah of ta'addud. We can accept it or not but it is true. Divorces have also been in existence and they will always be. You cannot eradicate divorces no matter how pious you become, you cannot become more pious than Sahaba. As I said in another thread, the problem is to get them married. And being a widow, you can't help it no matter what you do. You can't stop death from coming to your husband. The whole problem with us - Ummah - is nafsi nafis. I come first. My husband, my quality time, my children, my house, my money, my wealth, Why should I share it with someone else? Jealousy: It will always remain in humans. It was always there and will always be there except in Jannah. When Allah and His Rasool did not consider it a valid reason for discouraging Ta'addud then who are we to use it as an excuse? Another problem with us that we worry to much about non - muslims more than we should. We don't worry about muslims at all. What did Allah and his Rasool say? Allah said, انما المؤمنون اخوة - Mumineen are Brothers! and what did his messenger say? المسلمون كجسد واحد ان اشتكي عينه اشتكي كله وان اشتكي راسه اشتكي كله -- Muslims are like a body, if the eye hurts the whole body hurts, if the head hurts, the whole body hurts. But have we ever seen how we behave with muslims and how our tones change when dealing with non muslims? Isn't it contradictory to Islam? If non muslims or muslims do not like a part of Islam, we do not hide it out of shame. We still keep on expressing it and make dua that Allah opens their hearts to accept the truth. The adl part of Ta'addud has been explained again and again. If someone still portrays it as impossible then I make dua that Allah gives them hidayat. It is hard but not impossible. When you do something for Allah, Allah makes it easy for you. And on the contrary if you do something easy without the help of Allah, it will be very difficult to do it. Now, as humans there is bound to be injustices between the two wives but Allah has given a solution for it. The solution is to ask forgiveness of the wives. But to use injustice as an excuse to completely wipe out a Sunnah is not a good thing. When Rasool Allah said that the person who does not do justice between two wives, he will come on Qayamat day and one side of his body will be fallen. This hadith does not mean that you stop practicing it altogether. Sahaba had more taqwa than us, they feared Allah more than us. Did they leave ta'addud? NO! They did not, but they made sure that they did Adl. We said that if a brother takes a step to marry a second time and he has complete intention of doing ADL, then after that IF he fails to do it, We hope that the wives will insha'Allah forgive him and Allah will also forgive him. Grave injustices to the rights of parents are found all over the society today. Does that mean we stop having children altogether for the fear of them going into hell for not fulfilling the rights of the parents. And an easier example is that of single marriages. There are countless millions of examples where husbands fail tto fulfill rights of the wives and inturn there are bitter divorces. Does this mean we should stop encouraging marriage altogether? Or does it mean that we should encourage marriages and encourage fulfillment of rights more than the marriage itself? We have an example of Hazrat Sawda radhiallahu anha who let go of her rights when Rasool Allah sallalahu alayhe wassallam thought of divorcing her. The problem is that we have our own thoughts and beliefs and criterias. Anything or anyone who doesn't fit it, we automatically think it is bad. And the worst problem is that we Muslims go on the backfoot trying to make excuses for perfectly okay things. Our mentality is to try to blend in the culture and make Islam suitable for them. Example: Terrorism. No need to explain this, the whole world knows what it is about. What was mentioned about husband not obliged to pay the medical bills was in response to the sister who said that women are not obliged to cook for the husband. The point was to show that if everyone goes on about their rights without any sacrifice and Ahsaan then the wheel of marriage cannot run smoothly. Rights are defined by Fuqaha to protect your interests in extreme cases. They are not there that you start demanding them the moment you enter into a relationship. No doubt it will destroy the marriage from the first day. We can either switch to defensive mode and start giving excuses and get emotional when someone threatens us that they will leave Islam because of this hadith, OR we can tell them that this is the most logical thing which our Prophet advised. We can give them a proper explanation and then rest depends on them. We can't force someone to become a muslim if they find problems with Islam neither do we want them to leave Islam just because they can't comprehend somethings. They should also exercise some patience and try to understand things before they blame Islam for their problems. Why is it that we always start to blame Islam for our problems and start to complain to Allah that WHY ME? and when it comes to the blessings like a good husband, a big house, a great car, nice job.. We never say, WHY ME? Do we ever think about the dying children in afghanistan, why them? why not us? There are feminists who hate the whole Idea of marriage and see it as a disgrace to women! There are feminists who think that having children is a disgrace to women! Rasool Allah Sallallahu alaihi wasallam has clearly encouraged us to marry fertile loving women to have more children so that he can be proud on the day of Qayamat on the number of our Ummat. This hadith can be used to say that Islam thinks of women as baby making factories and this is why I should stay away from Islam. These are just excuses. We muslims are clearly going against quran ,hadith , sahaba and Fuqaha of the Salaf and then we dress our wishes with Islamic attires to portray ourselves as great muslims. Sahaba married just to have children as I have repeatedly mentioned the story of Hazrat Umar Radhi ALlahu unhu when he wanted to marry again and said Wallahi I dont have any interest in marriage but to have more children to make my Nabi proud of myself! Sahaba wanted to have children to make nabi proud when they had done ENOUGH in HIS life alone which made him proud but still they didn't leave anything. But we are the exact opposite, we don't want to make our nabi proud of us because WE ARE THE PERFECT MUSLIMS.... We make excuses not to have more children like it will be difficult to give them good tarbiyat. Why can't we handle 10-12 children when we can go to Islamic organisations and give proper good tarbiyat to 100s of children? These people should try to strengthen their bonds with Allah rather than taking back steps cause of one post on one thread of a forum. I see this attitude as irresponsible. It is the same as people saying, we don't keep beards because bearded people do ZINA. We don't wear niqabs and hijab because Hijabi girls go on dating with men. I will end this post with an Ayat: كتب عليكم القتال وهو كره لكم وعسي ان تكرهوا شيئا وهو خيرلكم و عسي ان تحبوا شيئا وهو شرلكم والله يعلم وانتم لا تعلمون Fighting is enjoined upon you, while it is hard on you. It could be that you dislike something, when it is good for you; and it could be that you like something when it is bad for you. Allah knows, and you do not know. That's All.