Transformasi Peran Wali Nikah dalam Hukum Islam Kontemporer: Antara Otoritas, Persetujuan Perempuan dan Perlindungan Hukum

The Transformation of the Role of the Marriage Guardian in Contemporary Islamic Law: Between Authority, Women’s Consent, and Legal Protection

Abstract

Marriage guardianship (wali nikah) is an important institution in Islamic marriage law whose legal position and authority are constructed differently in Islamic jurisprudence and contemporary Islamic family law. The differing views of the four schools of Islamic jurisprudence demonstrate that the issue of guardianship concerns not only the guardian’s presence in the marriage contract, but also women’s legal capacity, the consent of the prospective bride, the limits of the guardian’s authority, and mechanisms for resolving situations in which a guardian fails to properly exercise his guardianship function. This study aims to analyze the position and limits of the guardian’s authority from the perspective of the four schools of Islamic jurisprudence and to explain the transformation of such authority in contemporary Islamic family law. This study employs normative legal research using statutory, conceptual, and comparative approaches. Primary legal sources include the Qur’an, the Compilation of Islamic Law, Indonesian legislation, and family law regulations of comparative jurisdictions, while secondary sources consist of Islamic jurisprudential literature and relevant scholarly articles. The study finds that the transformation of guardianship does not occur through the abolition of the institution of the marriage guardian, but through a change in the character of the guardian’s authority. This transformation occurs through four mechanisms: limiting the legitimacy of the guardian’s authority based on the woman’s consent, restricting the scope of the guardian’s actions, establishing corrective mechanisms through a judicial guardian (wali hakim), and shifting the functional orientation from familial authority toward legal protection. Accordingly, Indonesian Islamic family law retains the institution of the marriage guardian while no longer maintaining the guardian’s authority in an unlimited form.