wife” (Ali and Naz 1998, 118). Lack of women’s
rights to divorce perpetuates an indentured rela-
tionship in a marital contract and, in too many
cases, perpetuates male violence against women
within a family. Moreover, the social norm empha-
sizing the value of virginity makes it almost impos-
sible for women who are divorced to find another
suitable marriage. To delegitimize and reduce the
incidence of child marriage, the colonial Child
Marriage Restraint Act (1929) and the Muslim
Family Laws Ordinance (1961), were joined re-
cently by a law requiring a woman’s consent in
marriage. Despite these laws, Shaheed reports what
happens in practice: “A recent national survey (of
1609 women respondents) showed that 75 percent
either had not been consulted or their opinion given
no weight at all. Child marriages continue...and
the Option of Puberty that allows minors to rescind
unconsummated child marriages before reaching
18 years of age has never been heard of by an over-
whelming number of those it is intended to provide
relief to” (1998, 71). Child marriage or women’s
marriage without consent is condoned by society in
the name of custom/tradition. However, these prac-
tices are rarely identified as domestic violence.
In India, there are nearly 60 million Muslim
women, making up the second largest female Mus-
lim population in the world (Hasan 1998, 72). In
contrast with Bangladesh and Pakistan, Muslim
women in India have not witnessed any changes in
personal, or religion-based, family laws (Hasan
1998, Kumar 1995). In fact, Muslim personal laws
in India institutionalize “easy divorce and poly-
gamy” (Hasan 1998, 78). Customs (dowry), social
traditions (patrilineality), and age-old discrimina-
tory family and personal laws are entrenched in
Muslim women’s lives and facilitate the perpetua-
tion of gender violence in the family.
All over South Asia – in Bangladesh, Pakistan,
and India – women’s groups have articulated the
need to fight against domestic violence. Two actions
these groups advocate are a Uniform Family Code
and the implementation of the United Nations
Convention on the Elimination of All Kinds of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Still,
the question remains: how to implement a Uniform
Family Code and other much needed reforms with-
out jeopardizing religious minority rights? Until
this question is resolved, the level of domestic
violence against women will not change in South
Asia.
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