Women & Islamic Cultures Family, Law and Politics

Arab States

The practices and social implications of divorce
and custody are discussed here by looking at how
women live with divorce before, during and after
marriage. How do Arab women deal with the
threat of divorce? What are their means to influ-
ence the divorce process? And what are its social
and economic consequences? Historical studies of
court archives have provided interesting insights
into how women pursued or resisted divorce in
court and added to its analysis from a legal per-
spective (Mir-Hosseini 2000, Ahmad 1972, Gibb
and Kramers 1974, El-Alami and Hinchcliffe 1996,
Sonbol 1996, Esposito and DeLong-Bas 2001), but
information on women’s actual experiences is scant
and fragmented. Women’s divorce experiences
vary greatly, depending not only on the particular
religious, customary, and national laws locally
adhered to, but also on class, urban or rural local-
ity, context of migration or dislocation, and indi-
vidual circumstances.

Before marriage
Before marriage, girls and their parents try to
reduce the risk of future divorce or its harmful con-
sequences by choosing a marriage partner from
comparable family background, preferably the
father’s brother’s son or another kinsman. He is
expected to show respect and responsibility for a
wife who is related to him, and she will feel more
comfortable living with relatives. No figures are
available to confirm whether familial endogamy
indeed reduces the divorce rate. Another strategy is
to demand a sizable bridal gift (mahror ßadàq).
This is thought to deter divorce because the man
would lose this investment, which becomes her
property if he divorces her. Estimations of the
divorce risk are most expressed in the deferred
mahr, the part due upon dissolution of the mar-
riage, which is set higher for previously divorced or
unrelated grooms. Cousins pay less, which may
leave a woman divorced by her cousin with less
property than if she had married a stranger. Bride-
exchange between families exacerbates the preca-
riousness of marriage for the women involved,
because when one wife is repudiated the other must
return to her parents too; and both women have
less security in gold, because hardly any mahris

Divorce and Custody: Contemporary Practices

paid. Girls who are divorced before the marriage is

consummated are expected to return the mahr, as

Moors found for Palestine (Moors 1995, 145). A

last means to empower women in divorce matters

is through the stipulations Muslim women are

allowed to write into their marriage contract. When

any stipulated right, for example, to study, work,

or remain the sole wife, is not granted, women can

demand divorce (Chérif-Chammari 1995). Femi-

nists advise the use of this strategy, but in practice it

is difficult because girls depend on their male matri-

monial guardian and male notaries, who are reluc-

tant to negotiate and register uncommon clauses.

Moreover, most girls prefer not to think of future

marital problems, and some even fancy divorce as a

way to become free.

During marriage

After the wedding, the conjugal tie is challenged

by the young man’s loyalty and obligations toward

his mother and patrilineal kin. He needed their

financial support for his marriage, which gives

them the power to interfere in the couple’s life. His

family’s demands for financial and emotional sup-

port are frequently a source of marital tensions

(Mir-Hosseini 2001, 120). Accusations of magic in

North Africa express this antagonism among in-

laws (Jansen 1987, 115–20). Women know the

marriage bond can be broken easily, and fear the

fragility of their husband’s love. Children are essen-

tial to secure the bond. Infertile women in the

Maghrib sometimes say they are pregnant with a

“sleeping fetus” to ward off the threat of divorce

(Jansen 2000). Women also protect themselves by

collecting gold, especially in the first years of mar-

riage, or by saving their housekeeping money or

salary. The tendency – and legal right – of employed

women to spend their income on themselves rather

than their family unit, is a source of conflict among

better-educated urban couples.

Women’s strategy to keep close social and finan-

cial ties with their family of birth, by a regular

exchange of gifts or by leaving them their share of

inheritance, is a source of security for women, but

can equally be a source of marital conflicts, and can

facilitate a separation. Maher explained the higher

divorce rates she found in Moroccan villages com-

pared to the nearby town by the fact that rural

women could fall back on their families to whom