Muslim Divorce Turns a Corner

JulieSavard — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 10:47:00 -0400

The Economic Times ran an article recently on how Muslim men and women might soon have equal rights. It seems that the All India Muslim Women Personal Law board wants to instate some western culture into an eastern world through the "Shariat Nikahnama." Good for them.

The board wants to overrule divorce carried out through SMS, e-mail, and video conferencing.

Hold up here... People in New Delhi can divorce via email? "Hi. I'm divorcing you. Signed, your new ex-husband." Um, yeah.

On the other hand, why is this such a bad thing? From what the media tells me, women are treated pretty shabbily in many places of the world, to say the least. There are countries where stoning is legal and where exposing a cheekbone or an ankle results in punishment.

In fact, the article quoted Shaista Amber, the AIMWPLB president as saying that the "Shariat Nikahnama" would entitle a woman to separate from her husband if there was any kind of ill treatment or torture.

Torture? Hold up again. Wouldn't it be smarter to make torture against the law first?

Here's my line of thinking: If a man tortured me and wouldn't have to live up to any consequences, I'd be firing up the laptop pretty fast for that quickie divorce a la email. "Which account would you like to use, honey? I'll set it up for you... would you like me to write it out and you just hit send?"

The other 90 percent of the proposed changes perfect sense, and they'd allow women to divorce after the discovery of an affair, a lack of family support, bad treatment and more. They're all perfectly justifiable reasons. Women should be allowed to part ways with someone who blew the concept of marriage out the window.

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Muslim Divorce Turns a Corner