to leave her husband is influenced by her chances of
remarriage and the fear of losing her children. Only
young women without children who can easily find
a new partner willingly request divorce; post-
menopausal women or women with several chil-
dren seldom voluntarily do so (Maher 1974b,
191–221). The second marriage reveals a drop in
social status: the mahr is lower and the second hus-
band less attractive in terms of age, income, or civil
status (Jansen 1987, 2–3). Moreover, a woman can
seldom take her children into the new marriage. If
her female relatives cannot take care of them, her
ex-husband has the right to take the children away
from her. Unlike men, women must observe a legal
waiting period (≠idda) before they can remarry.
During this period of three menstrual cycles, or
when they are pregnant until they have given birth,
the man can take his wife back.
Not all families are able or willing to welcome
back a divorcee with several children, despite the
strong ideology of family support. They will pressure
her to reconcile with and obey her husband, or when
that fails, to sue the ex-spouse to pay maintenance.
When he is too poor, the family often cannot but
reproachfully accept that the divorcee earns her own
living and that of her children. Divorcees are as a
result over-represented among employed women.
The work of divorcees in public space and their
movements outside male control contribute to the
ambiguous reputation of divorcees as both morally
degraded and joyfully free. Divorcees are often
referred to in pejorative terms. Married women
fear them for their seductive powers. In songs and
gossip, divorcees and other “women without men”
are associated with looseness, drunkenness, and
prostitution. The choice of some divorcees to make
a living in the entertainment business is seized upon
to stigmatize the whole group, and forces others
to go to extreme lengths to prove their decency
(Jansen 1987, 196–8). On the positive side,
divorcees are less constrained in their behavior
than married women. They can experience eco-
nomic independence and decision-making power,
and taste the pleasures of mobility and exploration
of the outside world. Despite the envious gossip
and moral reprobation, some divorcees have come
to enjoy life without a partner.
The mother is recognized as the most suitable
caretaker of the children after divorce. If she cannot
raise the child, or when she remarries, the right of
care (™a∂àna) passes to her mother, or another
woman in her family, before going to the child’s
paternal grandmother. This female prerogative
does not prevent conflicts concerning the children.
In some legal systems women’s rights to the chil-100 divorce and custody: contemporary practices
dren are temporary. This gives fathers a hold over
the mother and her children, whether they reclaim
the children after a certain age or not. Another rea-
son is that a father keeps his rights to guardianship
(wilàya), provided he pays for the child’s mainte-
nance. It gives him the right to decide on its educa-
tion, residence, travel or marriage, and the mother
must obey him in anything that concerns the child.
The major source of contention concerning the chil-
dren, however, is the insufficiency or absence of
maintenance. Among middle and upper classes, the
fathers who do pay for their children still need reg-
ular prompting. Most broken marriages are found
among the poor, and here men often forego their
guardianship rights because they cannot afford to
pay maintenance or prefer to spend their meager
income on their new family. Women’s privilege of
custody means that they have to carry the full eco-
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