Abstract
The wife’s right of refusal in case of the husband’s refusal to pay her mahr (the obligation, in the form of money or possessions, paid by the groom to the bride at the time of marriage) under certain conditions and circumstances is valid in Islamic jurisprudence and law. In Civil Law, articles 1085 and 1086 stipulate the right of refusal. Different interpretations of the articles have led to the Supreme Court decision on a unified judicial precedent, again raising different questions and interpretations that are inconsistent with the jurisprudential precedent. Of course, the jurists’ statement is apparently rich enough to bear maximum interpretation of the right of refusal. However, since consensus is the most important reason for validity of the right of refusal, and because consensus is a proof by expression, when in doubt, we should consider its degree of certainty. Here, the degree of certainty stands for sexual submission. Thanks to Unified Judicial Precedent 718 we should suffice to degree of certainty and accept the application of affirmation of the right of refusal to obedience and its renunciation to sexual submission. Imam Khomeini, too, was positive on this viewpoint. Abundance of different rules by civil courts after issuance of the Unified Judicial Precedent 718 indicates that this article of the Civil Law is yet to be interpreted by virtue of legal and jurisprudential criteria. An interpretation compatible with the legal logic is the one differentiating object of the right of refusal from the object of renunciation of the right of refusal.