Family Economic Resilience and Household Harmony in East Lombok: A Socio-Legal Study of Islamic Family Law
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.70211/wesw.v3i3.771Keywords:
Family Economic Resilience, Household Harmony, Islamic Family Law, Nafkah, Livelihood DiversificationAbstract
Family economic resilience is a key condition of household stability, but its operation within Muslim family life cannot be reduced to income sufficiency. This study examines how Muslim families in East Lombok construct economic resilience and how these practices are interpreted within Islamic Family Law. Using an empirical socio-legal qualitative design, the study combines semi-structured interviews with purposively selected Muslim families, religious leaders, and community actors with Islamic legal and documentary sources. Four interdependent mechanisms emerged: livelihood diversification, complementary spousal economic cooperation, Islamic-oriented financial management, and kinship and community support. Together, these mechanisms help households respond to income volatility, sustain essential needs, coordinate economic roles, and contain financial pressure. Wives’ economic participation functions as practical cooperation rather than a transfer of the husband’s normative responsibility for nafkah. The study reframes family economic resilience as a relational, ethically embedded capability linking material adaptation, spousal coordination, financial ethics, and social capital. This integrated perspective explains how economic resilience can support household harmony and the pursuit of sakinah, mawaddah, wa rahmah.
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