What is the ruling on preferring one of two wives in financial maintenance?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question : May Allah reward you. A man has two wives and gives one of them more in financial maintenance than the other, on the grounds that the second one is employed and works. Is this permissible? And is it just between the wives?
Answer : It is not permissible for a man to prefer one of two wives over the other. If he has two wives, one of whom is employed and receives a salary and has no minor children in her care, and the other has no salary, it is not permissible for him to allocate the financial maintenance to the second one who has no salary. Rather, he must provide for her and the other equally. And that is her money, belonging to her,[Al-Ma'idah 5:54],
Answer : It is not permissible for a man to prefer one of two wives over the other. If he has two wives, one of whom is employed and receives a salary and has no minor children in her care, and the other has no salary, it is not permissible for him to allocate the financial maintenance to the second one who has no salary. Rather, he must provide for her and the other equally. And that is her money, belonging to her,
That is the favor of Allah; He bestows it upon whom He wills.
ذَٰلِكَ فَضْلُ اللَّهِ يُؤْتِيهِ مَن يَشَاءُ
Source
قناة «فضيلة الشيخ محمد بن صالح العثيمين»، لقاء[32 من 42] ما حكم تفضيل إحدى الزوجتين بالنفقه؟!! الشيخ ابن عثيمين - مشروع كبار العلماء — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.