An engaged couple calling each other husband and wife
21-4-2010 | IslamWeb
Question:
if a boy and a girl are engaged i-e have marriage promise.on the basis of engagement they started calling relations in the presence of people ,these relations actually come into being after nikah.for example the boy says my father is your father in law and two or more people hear it,similarly the girl says your sister is my sister in law and the people around are able to hear it.once the boy says call my name and the girl says i will call u my husband,and the people around hear it.but it was clear in their minds they are saying it on the basis of marriage promise and they are not doing a contract at any time,after that the engagement is broken and the girl is married to someoneelse.now the girl is worried about the conversation which she made with the first boy,do that conversation with the first boy can become a nikah contract automatically although there was no ijab qabool?
Answer:
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad 
is His slave and Messenger.
This young man and this girl would not be husband and wife just because of calling each other by those terms. Marriage in the Sharee’ah is concluded on the basis of some specific principles and it has its own conditions which we clarified in Fatwa 83629.
Moreover, the marriage contract has a wording; we mean the wording of proposal and acceptance, in a way that the guardian of the wife says to the husband: “I marry off my daughter to you" or that he says to the husband's authorized person: “I marry off my daughter to your authorizer.” Then the husband or his authorized person says: “I accept (your proposal).”
Therefore, the marriage of this girl to the other man is valid if it took place fulfilling the conditions of a valid marriage contract which we mentioned previously [in the above-referred Fatwa]. Therefore, she should not pay any attention to the whispers that make her doubt the validity of her marriage.
Allaah Knows best.