Marriage, Woman Wanting Divorce, and Custody Battles in the Middle East - Research Proposal Example

Introduction Women’s personal autonomy is largely affected by the patriarchal family system that has existed in almost all countries in the Middle East. There is tremendous work that needs to be done in order to allow women to have a voice in the society and especially when it involves their marriage. Liberal political movements and retrogressive regimes have had a fundamental effect on women’s rights over the decades. Mostly, they are overbearing and stringent on women instead of assisting them to acquire freedom from the ever evident patriarchal society (Hasso, 2011). Background Despite recent media attention, there are still numerous cases of oppression against women in all levels in the countries in the Middle East. The most evident include, as mentioned earlier: Lack of personal autonomy- this is due to the dominant patriarchal society. For example, in many countries in the Middle East, it is very difficult for a woman to file for divorce. Polygamy is allowed, but Polyandry is prohibited. A woman is not allowed to marry more than one husband (Hasso, 2011). In Egypt, one of the liberal countries in the Middle East, UNICEF research has shown that more than 90% of women aged between, 15-49 have had female genital mutilation between, 1997-2007. In Afghanistan, the government passed a law that allows Shia men to deny sustenance for their wives if they fail to obey the sexual demands from their husbands. Women can also be married off by their parents at a very tender age and without their consent. This has led many young girls into committing suicide to avoid being married off to people they do not know. This guardianship on women extends far beyond their relationships and marriage to every aspect of their lives. Women in Saudi Arabia have to obtain permission from a male figure such as the father, brother or even a son in order to work, marry, travel or obtain education and health care. Such limitations to personal freedom and autonomy extend throughout the Middle East. Women are basically treated like minors and have no basic rights even to control their bodies or their existence. Education- literacy amongst women in the Middle East is very low since most are denied the right to have a proper education especially due to early marriages. Illiteracy rate amongst women above 15 years is over 42% as compared to men who are at 22%. The Demographic and Health survey conducted in Egypt in 2000 exhibited the parents’ preferences on the education of their children. Over 53 % of women stated that between their sons and daughters, it is their sons that they are more likely to take to university. Only 8% preferred their daughters to go to the university. A majority also pegged the possibility of not educating girls on their economic status than for educating the boys (Kelly & Breslin, 2010). Participating in society-women’s political, social and economic participation remains very low in the Middle East. Women are denied the right to work, vote or hold office. Survey shows that only 20% 0f women above 15 years make up the labour force in countries in the Middle East. The majority hold odd jobs as labourers in the agricultural sector. Marriage Different cultures make for different practices in the countries in the Middle East. However, there are significant similarities among the cultures that involve marriage throughout the region. These include: Arranged marriages This form of practice is almost synonymous with all of the people in the region. Arranged marriages are quite often not forced marriages. The marriage is arranged by the parents and the parties involved are allowed to give their consent. The groom especially is allowed to give suggestions on whom he prefers. However, this is not always the case in most countries in the region. Some arranged marriages entail forcibly marrying the girls off without their consent. This situation is worse for women under customary law as compared to the Islamic law (Kelly & Breslin, 2010). These laws have provisions that leave women at a disadvantage. This can be termed as irony in history since during their promulgation in the seventeenth century, in Arabia, were meant to advance the rights of women versus the then existing norms. In that century, under the Islamic law, child marriages were allowed. Women in Iraq are forced to marry men in their own sect regardless of being in love or not. Young girls could forcibly be married off to willing spouses by a guardian, such as the father, brother or an uncle. Men were allowed to marry up to four wives and an unlimited number of concubines. Women on the other hand were only allowed to marry one man. It was also a requirement by the law that they be loyal and submissive to their husbands. If they failed to follow this, the husband was legally entitled to beat the wives and withdraw any kind of maintenance payments. Obedience entailed the prohibition of the wife to leave the house without the knowledge of the husband. In the event that the wife left, the husband had the right to use the police and use force to return the wife to the matrimonial home. The wife’s contact with the outside world was left to the willingness of the husband (Kelly & Breslin, 2010). No contact with people who were not family was allowed except with the permission of the husband. Below is a short survey conducted by UNICEF to show how young girls are forced in to marriages at a very tender age. Percentage of women aged 20 to 24 married by the age of 18 Source: UNICEF, Child Info: Monitoring the Situation of Children and Women (www.childinfo.org/marriage_countrydata.php These provisions affecting women have been jealously guarded since time immemorial since most of them are set forth by the guidance of the Quran which is regarded by the Islamic community as the eternally valid speech of God to all mankind. As such, the influential European powers which were dominant in the Middle East in the in the 19th and 20th century could not lead Muslims to forsake their beliefs and practices especially in matters of family law and inheritance even with adaptation of western culture in various aspects (Sonbol, 1996). Since the onset of independence from the European powers, several governments in the Middle East have undertaken reforms with an aim of reducing inequalities between men and women. However, they face stiff opposition from the clerics and other conservative religious leaders. They posit that this is a gross violation to the divine law. Minimal success has been witnessed in the countries where there is less dependency on the good will of the Islamic leaders. Examples can be drawn from Turkey in the 1920’s under the charismatic hero, Kemal and in Iran in the 1960’s under the political leadership of the Shah. Women seeking divorce It is an extremely difficult exercise for a woman to successfully obtain a divorce from her husband in the Middle Eastern region. It is however very easy for a man to obtain the same from the wife. The man only needs to inform the court regarding the divorce without any explanation and then repeat three times of his intention to divorce the wife. In some countries in the Middle East such as Saudi Arabia, a woman can obtain a divorce if the husband gave the right to divorce when signing the marriage contract (Sonbol, 1996). Despite this provision, not all courts allow the stipulations of the contract as grounds for divorce. This creates an obstacle to the woman allowing her to file for divorce on very narrow conditions. Before divorce is allowed, the woman is required to have substantial evidence adultery, disease or impotence on the part of the husband which is a rather embarrassing issue to discuss in court. It is also a requirement that the woman’s guardian such as the father or a brother consent to the divorce to make it legal. It is also allowed for the guardian to grant a divorce even if the woman is not willing to divorce her husband. Rarely do women file for divorce. In the event that the divorce is successfully obtained, the husband gives a single payment agreed upon during the signing of the marriage contract. A woman can also attain a Khula divorce where she gives up her dowry payment and also payment contract so as to easily divorce the husband (Ghanim, 2009). In the past, women could absolutely not divorce their husband under the Islamic laws unless with the cooperation of the husband. Many husbands were seen to abuse their rights to divorce since it was pretty easy which would leave their wives in anxiety and uncertainty. Most of the divorced women often found themselves wallowing in poverty since the Islamic law allowed the husband to support the children permanently but this was different for the ex-wife. Support from the husband was until the third the end of three menstrual cycles after the divorce was announced or after the delivery of the baby in case she was pregnant. Women could only inherit one half the amounts of males (Ghanim, 2009) This was pinned on the provision that only males were allowed to cater for the expenses of providing for their families. This is quite common in the Middle East to date with women inheriting nothing after they are divorced. Custody battles in the Middle East Under the Islamic laws, it is the father who has sole custody of the children. However, in case of divorce, women are allowed to have physical custody of their female children until puberty and the male children up to the age of seven years. Despite this, the father still has the legal guardianship over the children. Children with the legal required age of living with their mother are put under the custody of their father or grandparent. Women are only allowed custody if the father is unfit to be the guardian (Keddie, 2007). There have been cases where the children are left in the hands of unfit fathers by the courts since they lack knowledge of the social welfare of the child despite desperate cries by the mother to have custody. Women are discriminated against as incompetent to have sole custody of the children in the event of a divorce. This is also mitigated by the fact that the Sharia law stipulates that it is the responsibility of the man to take care of the family’s needs and not the wife. Most of the women also lack basic skills to get employment due to low levels of education or no education at all due to the stringent factors put against women attainment of education. For those women who have gone to school, it is also difficult for them to secure employment since the guardian must consent to this (Keddie, 2007). Women are also limited to lower insignificant places in the job market and the high end jobs are left to the male folk. As such, the court gives the custody to the father since the mother might be unable to financially meet the needs of the children. Women’s legal status There has been a transition in the legal status of women in the idle east since the twentieth century. Transition in customary laws, Islamic laws, and adopted European laws has continued to affect women in varying depths. Legal status issues of women in the Middle East are quite different from those of women in the western countries. There are several feminist groups but they are not of major significance since they lack any input in to the political process (Kelly & Breslin, 2010). Improvement in the status of women has not been as a result of such organizations but the willingness of the male political elite to modernise and improve the society. They have used such reforms as a social engineering tool. The political leaders view the move to improve women reforms as a way of promoting modernisation. These legal changes have taken years in the Middle East for the women to feel the impact of the changes. The reform maybe significantly and immediately felt by the educated women living in the urban centres but not the illiterate women in the villages in the rural and nomadic communities. It is also important to acknowledge the fact that male-female inequality that has been experienced by women all over the world is different in the Middle East as women today enjoy legal equality with men over political issues, education and other opportunities such as property ownership, which has been a major struggle for women in the west (Sonbol, 1996). What Middle Eastern women have struggled with for centuries and what seems to be barbaric is the family and inheritance laws. This is where the women are subordinated to the authority of the men. Governments attempt at women’s reforms In many Middle Eastern countries, governments have had to compromise their attempts to improve the status of the women. Liberal Muslim intellectuals have been in the fore front to assist the government in to successfully reforming laws to better the status of the women in the society. The intellectuals have introduced different interpretations of the Islamic law justifying modification of the rules propagated by the medieval jurists in an effort to accommodate the changes in the society (Hasso, 2011). Various reforms have in the past been enacted such as the rising of the age at which young girls are married and also allowing their consent for the marriage, the husband’s polygamy status has also been placed under certain conditions, the right of the husband to demand obedience has been reduced legally, the ability of the wife to attain divorce even with the objection of the husband, improved financial liability for the husband after divorcing the wife especially out of no cause and outside court and very minimal and modest inheritance reforms to favour women. Saudi Arabia is the only country in the Middle East that has resisted any concessions to modernity (Ghanim, 2009). The women suffer from the consequences of strict interpretations of the Islamic laws that require them to stay fully veiled in public, and they are not allowed to drive anywhere in the country. Conclusion Until recently, it appeared as though it was a matter of time before women attained their equality in the Middle East. The resurgence of the Islamic revolution however threatened this road to freedom. As such, increase political influence coming from Islamic fundamentalist movement and the liberal interpretation of the Sharia law has which was gaining popularity has been discarded by the conservatives (Keddie, 2007). The conservatives have campaigned against any changes that might threaten the domination of the male in the region. They have called for rigidity in sexual segregation and restricted the roles of females to wives and mothers. Their objective is to eliminate coeducation setting up special training for women to excel as wives and mothers, pulling them away from jobs that are not home bound, limiting the role they play in politics, prohibiting abortion and family planning. It is important to note that birth control and abortion were allowed as per the medieval jurists who did not view these practices as a threat to the morality. Islamic fundamentalists have had considerable influence in women reforms. Women should have equal family rights over their marriage, children and divorce issues just as the male in the Middle East (Kelly & Breslin, 2010). This may however take time before such changes are adopted in this region due to various interpretations of the Sharia law and socialization which may make it difficult for the people to adapt to changes. References Hasso, F. S. (2011). Consuming desires: Family crisis and the state in the Middle East. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press. Sonbol, A. (1996). Women, the family, and divorce laws in Islamic history. Syracuse, N.Y., Syracuse University Press. Kelly, S., & Breslin, J. (2010). Womens rights in the Middle East and North Africa: Progress amid resistance. New York: Freedom House. Ghanim, D. (2009). Gender and violence in the Middle East. Westport, Conn: Praeger. Keddie, N. R. (2007). Women in the Middle East: Past and present. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Read More