The Mohammedan law fixes no arbitrary age at which either male or female is competent to marry.
Besides understanding, puberty and freedom, the capacity to marry requires that there should be no legal disability or bar to the union of the parties; that in fact they should not be within the prohibited degrees of relationship.
Legal Disabilities.—There are nine prohibitions to marry, namely:
1. Consanguinity, which includes mother, grandmother, sister, niece and aunt.
2. Affinity, which includes mother-in-law, step-grandmother, daughter-in-law and step-granddaughter.
3. Fosterage. A man cannot marry his foster-mother, nor foster-sister, unless the foster-brother and sister were nursed by the same mother at intervals widely separated. But a man may marry the mother of his foster-sister, or the foster-mother of his sister.
4. Sister-in-law. A man may not marry his wife’s sister during his wife’s lifetime, unless she be divorced.
5. A man married to a free woman cannot marry a slave.
6. It is not lawful for a man to marry the wife or mu’taddah of another, whether the ’iddah be on account of repudiation or death. That is, he cannot marry until the expiration of the woman’s ’iddah, or period of probation.
7. A Mohammedan cannot marry a Polytheist, but he may marry a Christian, Jewess, or a Sabean.