If the father is poor and the mother is rich, and the young child has also a rich grandfather, the mother should be ordered to maintain the child out of her own property, with a right of recourse against the father and the grandfather is not to be called upon to do so. When the father is poor, and has a rich brother, he may be ordered to maintain the child, with right of recourse against the father.
When male children have strength enough to work for their livelihood, though not actually adult, the father may set them to work for their own maintenance, or hire them out, and maintain them out of their wages; but he has no power to hire females out for work or service.
A father must maintain his female children absolutely until they are married, when they have no property of their own. But he is not obliged to maintain his adult male children unless they are disabled by infirmity or disease.
It is also incumbent on a father to maintain his son’s wife, when the son is young, poor, or infirm.
The maintenance to an adult daughter, or to an adult son who is disabled, rests upon the parents in three equal parts, two-thirds being furnished by the father, and one-third by the mother.
A child in easy circumstances may be compelled to maintain his poor parents, whether they be Muslim or not, or whether by their own industry they be able to earn anything for subsistence or not.
Where there are male and female children, or children only of the male sex, or only of the female sex, the maintenance of both parents is alike incumbent upon them.
Where there is a mixture of male and female children, the maintenance of both parents is incumbent on them alike.
When a mother is poor, her son is bound to maintain her, though he be in straitened circumstances himself, and she not infirm. When a son is able to maintain only one of his parents, the mother has the better right; and if he have both parents and a minor son, and is able to maintain only one of them, the son has the preferable right. When he has both parents, and cannot afford maintenance to either of them, he should take them to live with him, that they may participate in what food he has for himself. When the son, though poor, is earning something, and his father is infirm, the son should allow the father to share his food with him.
As of a father and mother, so the maintenance of grandfathers and grandmothers, if they be indigent, is incumbent upon their grandchildren, though the former be of different religion.