peace Samia, all,
I meant that nisa are not necessarily the receiver directly, i.e. it is not like person A giving money to person B. It may be, but not necessarily so, as I explained. That was my point, albeit this seems a peripheral issue.
But "spending" is a condition for quwama. If there is a spender, then there's someone who receives.
Since "nisaa" means those who are vulnerable (in anyway including not having means to gain money), then they will be the reciever. It's not a peripheral issue. It IS the issue as far as nisaa and rijaal are concerned (in as much as they are not women and men).
You said:
"Setting free a mu'min is not necessarily for the sake of this person, but for the society."
Why cant it be both? I think setting such a person free will benefit that individual greatly. Note, initially you did not include the "societal" impact clause.
Verse 4:92 speaks of conditions of when to free a prisoner. It deals with covenants between the community of the killer and that of the victim, and whether there's peace covenant or not. In both cases, the freed prisoner should be a "mu'min", which helps understand the meaning of "mu'min": not an aggressor; someone who extends peace to others (4:94), and this leads to my belief that this prisoner should be one who spreads peace, not aggression. This is mainly for the society.
You then imply 4:34 is about keeping secrets. And how these breadwinners are apparently taking care of the house and children and working.
I prefer not to discuss even more of the verse and get more complicated and prefer to stick to the crux of the issue, i.e. is there a contradiciton or not.
By secret I mean the reason why the husband is not working and how this has an impact on her...etc
Why should she do the housework and take care of the children and become also the breadwinner? This is not an obligation and is not prescribed by God. The husband should do his share and if he doesn't then no blame on her to complain. If he helps in the house, which is the ideal situation the verse must be talking about, then she should not boast around as the bread winner. If she does, then he should advise her not to...etc through the rest of the steps up divorce or reconciliation
You said:
"You mentioned that I had to use the whole statement, now let's see:
(Men are guardians over women for what God favoured some of them over others).
If God favoured some men over other men, then we cannot say "all" men are guardians over "all" women. There are some men who are not favoured. What's their position vis-a-vis guardianship? What about men who are non-believers/ but criminals/ violent? What's their favour?
If the favour is over women: again, what about women who spend? A mother who works and keeps her sick or unemployed son/ husband/ father, is she his guardian or he her guardian? These examples by the way are very, very common, and almost every woman finds herself in such a situation at least for sometime in her life."
I already answered these questions in reply 47 on this thread (i.e. my first reply to you on this thread).
The only one I have not covered explicitly, although alluded to on Quran434.com is that of a women who fulfills the criteria of "qawwamoun" - what is her situation?
Well, as we can clearly see in 4:34 the CRITERIA of being "qawwamoun" is given as:
1) God preferred/bestowed on you (and this likely refers to capacity to work - we both agree on this)
and
2) spending of their money
So, as we can see, if a woman fulfills the above two criteria, she can be regarded as "qawwamoun" (assuming the husband or males are not providing also), there could be multiple "qawwamoun" per household.
Very Good. I agree...We agree
What The Quran is saying, quite ingeniously, is that it is the default duty/responsibility of the men to support/maintain due to the innate differences between men and women (i.e. pregnancy, child birth, suckling, generally physically weaker thus less job opportunities) - that is the default preference (further elaborated in 2:228, 2:233, 65:6), however note very carefully that the way it is phrased is done in such a manner as NOT to impose an absolute rule that "men are qawaamanoun over women".
What do you mean by the last sentence? It DOES say exactly that.
Why mention pregnancy and childbirth? Women still work while they are pregnant and when they have kids. If they are unable, they fall within the category of the sick, men or women, and abstain. Same rules as for fasting. Why change the same rules here?
Moreover, how many years of the age an average woman spends on pregnancy and childbirth to make it such an issue?
What about unmarried women, sterile women?
The way it is said bases it on CRITERIA. And with the usage of "SOME of THEM over OTHERS/SOME (masculine plural) - further reinforces this and compliments this idea perfectly. In fact, in hindsight, it is ingenius.
So, as we can see, with regard to our viewpoints, we have the same outcome AND the Quran itself allows for it, and there is no need whatsoever for interpreting the terms rijal/nisa as anything other than men/women for this to work.
I'd be interested to know your thoughts on this
The way "some of them over some" as I explained it in an earlier post (post 78) in a reply to huruf, on the issue of FDL, and according to the usage of this expression in the quraan, shows that it's a preference within ONE group, people of both genders in our verse, in opposition to the expression that shows preference between two specific groups.
The need for this interpretation of nisaa and rijaal rsides in he two examples given of two wives, where the second example of a woman whose nushuuz to be feared may lead to divorce.
To what category do these two examples belong? Rijaal or nisaa'?
If someone is quwam over the other, the logic says we should show the criteria of this quwama. The verse did that.
Now the verse is giving examples of two quwamuuns who either behaved well or badly.
These two quwamuuns are rijaal. And it happened that both of them are women.
Show Posts
and they will go to hell, not women 
).