How to act with equity between the wives

 How to act with equity between the wives

Question:

A man married a woman, travelled to another country, and stayed there until he married another woman as well. He did not visit the first woman, and he stayed with the second for months. Then he came to the first one. Should the man spend the same amount of time with the first wife as he spent (with the second wife), or should he begin to apportion his time (between them)?

Answer:

The Sunnah when a man marries a wife, while he already has a wife whom he married before, is to stay with the second wife for three days if she is not a virgin and for seven days if she is a virgin. After that, he should begin to divide his time and act with justice between them. When he is absent from one of them, he must spend the same amount of time with her as he spent with the other one, if that is possible for him, unless the one with the right gives up her right or a part of it.

Permanent Committee for Research and Verdicts

Fatawa Islamiyyah, Darussalam, volume 5, page 363