Effect on Children Children are our future generation. Anything wrong that happens to them today will certainly have an impact on the society tomorrow. There are many negative effects of cohabitation, as opposed to marriage, to the well-being of children including matters pertaining to status, emotion, violence, maintenance and inheritance. Under Islamic law, in order to acquire the status of a legitimate child, it is required not only that the child must be born within wedlock but he must also be born at least after six months after the marriage takes place. Section 110 of the IFLA provides: Where a child is born to a woman who is married to a man more than six qamariah months from the date of the marriage …, the nasab or paternity of the child is established in the man. Thus, if the above condition with regard to status has not been fulfilled, the child will not be considered as a legitimate child and thus will not be entitled to other rights such as maintenance and inheritance. In the case of Wan Azmi v Nik Salwani, the …show more content…
Everybody should play a role in order to make sure that cohabitation will not become a phenomenon in Malaysia. The government as the higher authority should take this matter seriously and provide good policies and laws which prevent people from indulging in this unhealthy activity. At the same time, the policies and facilities to encourage people to get married should also be made available. It is feared that if no serious step is taken to combat cohabitation, people would take cohabitation as the alternative to marriage. It would be very unfortunate if Malaysians repeat and face the same difficulties and agonies that others have gone through and later find it very hard to overcome the