Trouble with a sub menu in my WordPress menu

Question

I'm creating my first WordPress theme. It's a very simple one for a friend's website, who is a music producer. I'm creating the navigation menu. One of the items on the menu is listen. It's not an actual link. You hover over it and a submenu should appear. So I made Listen a custom link.

The problem is that the submenu doesn't appear. The Submenu has its own class. But I don't think WordPress is reading the CSS

Here is the CSS:

ul.sub-menu {
display: none;
position: absolute;
padding: 0px;
margin-left: -20px;
}

ul.sub-menu li {
display: block;
text-align: left;
background-color: grey;
}

ul.sub-menu li:hover {
background-color: #dae0e6;
}

ul.main_nav li:hover ul.sub-menu {
display: block;
}

Here is the HTML and php code in the header.php:

<nav>

<?php   

$defaults = array(
    'container' => false,
    'theme_location' => 'primary-menu',
    'menu_class'    => 'main_nav'   
);

wp_nav_menu( $defaults );

?>
<!--
<ul class="main_nav">
    <li>
        <a href="home.html">Home</a>
    </li>
    <li>
        <a href="bio.html">Bio</a>
    </li>
    <li> 
        <a>Listen</a>
        <ul class="sub-menu">
            <li><a href="musicOriginal.html">Originals</a></li>
            <li><a href="musicTvfilm.html">TV/Film</a></li>
        </ul>
    </li>   
    <li><a href="credits.html">Credits</a></li>
    <li><a href="contact.html">Contact</a></li>
</ul>
-->
</nav>

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Uttam Kumar Roy Uttam Kumar Roy · Accepted Answer · 2015-12-28T12:12:13

Here is my approach:

I changed css so its shows menu sub menu with CSS.

JsFiddle Demo

nav
{
	margin-top:15px
}

nav ul
{
	list-style:none;
	position:relative;
	float:left;
	margin:0;
	padding:0
}

nav ul a
{
	display:block;
	color:#333;
	text-decoration:none;
	font-weight:700;
	font-size:12px;
	line-height:32px;
	padding:0 15px;
	font-family:"HelveticaNeue","Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif
}

nav ul li
{
	position:relative;
	float:left;
	margin:0;
	padding:0
}

nav ul li:hover
{
	background:#f6f6f6
}

nav ul ul
{
	display:none;
	position:absolute;
	top:100%;
	left:0;
	background:#fff;
	padding:0
}

nav ul ul li
{
	float:none;
	width:200px
}

nav ul ul a
{
	line-height:120%;
	padding:10px 15px
}

nav ul ul ul
{
	top:0;
	left:100%
}

nav ul li:hover > ul
{
	display:block
}

<nav>
	<ul class="main_nav">
	    <li>
	        <a href="home.html">Home</a>
	    </li>
	    <li>
	        <a href="bio.html">Bio</a>
	    </li>
	    <li> 
	        <a>Listen</a>
	        <ul class="sub-menu">
	            <li><a href="musicOriginal.html">Originals</a></li>
	            <li><a href="musicTvfilm.html">TV/Film</a></li>
	        </ul>
	    </li>   
	    <li><a href="credits.html">Credits</a></li>
	    <li><a href="contact.html">Contact</a></li>
	</ul>
</nav>

Trouble with a sub menu in my WordPress menu

4 Answers