Musannaf Ibn Abi Shaybah

It was asked from Hasan (may Allah have mercy on him) that if a man has two wives, and he forbids one from going out, but the other wife goes out—the one whom he had not forbidden—so he thinks that the one who went out is the one whom he had forbidden, and thus he says, "O so-and-so! Did you go out? You are divorced." So what is the ruling? He replied: The one whom he intended, she will be divorced.

Ibrahim (may Allah have mercy on him) says that if a man has two wives, and he forbids one from going out, but the other wife goes out—the one whom he did not forbid—then he assumes that the one who was forbidden has gone out, so he says, "O so-and-so! Did you go out? You are divorced." In this case, both will be divorced: the one whose name was mentioned, because of her name being mentioned, and the other because he said, "You are divorced."

Hazrat Zuhri, may Allah have mercy on him, was asked: If a man says to his wife, "If you go out, you are divorced," and after that, another woman asks for his wife's clothes and, after wearing them, is about to go outside, and the husband sees this and says, "You have gone out, therefore you are divorced," then this divorce will take effect on his wife.

Hazrat Ata (may Allah have mercy on him) says that if a man made his wife swear an oath that she would not go out, but another of his wives went out, and someone said to him that she is your wife, and he thought that perhaps she was the one whom he had forbidden to go out and he divorced her, then the divorce will not take effect.

Hazrat Qatadah (may Allah have mercy on him) was asked that if a man had two wives, and one of them went outside and he asked, "Who is this?" He was told, "She is so-and-so." He said, "She is divorced," even though the one whose name was mentioned was not actually her. So what is the ruling? He replied that both will be divorced.

Hazrat Aamir (may Allah have mercy on him) says that if a man had wives or two slave women, and he called one and said, "You are divorced," but the other one answered, then the divorce will apply to the one whose name he mentioned. The same ruling applies if he said this to his slave.