Middle East Media and Book Reviews Online Volume 1, Issue 1

2/2/2016 Middle East Media and Book Reviews Online Nadia Sonneveld’s rich study shows how the lines drawn clearly between formal and informal marriage in Egyptian public discourse become less clear upon close examination. Informal marriage includes so-called ‘urfi or “customary” marriage and misyar or “ambulant” marriage, neither of which is consistent with the Egyptian PSL. Both forms of marriage are usually clandestine or semi-clandestine, hence often not registered with the civil authorities. Also, in amisyar marriage, the couple agrees to forgo a dower and cohabitation. Whereas public discourse construes these forms of marriage as engaged in primarily by youth, and hence as a threat to the familial and social order, it is often married men who resort to ‘urfi and misyar marriage as a means of concealing their polygyny from their first wives, who could sue for divorce if informed of it. The women who become second wives benefit socially from their married status. Older, independent women resort to misyar contracts of marriage with younger men, also for the social benefit of marriage, while keeping their autonomy. The phenomenon of informal marriage mirrors social changes occurring in family life. Although public opinion maintains that it is the husband’s duty to provide financially and his wife’s duty to obey him in return, the “maintenance-obedience relationship” is inverted in many informal marriages, which allow self-supporting women to live independently. Moreover, women often contract informal marriages with no intention of forming a conventional household or raising children. Thus two assumed aspects of marriage are called into question by informal marriage, as is men’s masculinity. The four chapters in the second section focus on what happens within the family law courts, or in other words the law in application. Each is based upon fieldwork and aims to go beyond consideration of the formal law by looking at the way that legal processes influence outcomes. The chapters by Christine Hegel Cantarella, Sarah Vincent Grosso, and Maaike Voorhoeve discuss tactics of delay, the production and crediting of evidence, and judicial discretion, respectively, in divorce proceedings. These foci result in nuanced accounts of how the law can work for, as well as against the interests of women litigants. Delayed decisions are universally portrayed by reformers as detrimental to women, but some Egyptian women used delaying tactics successfully to enhance their opportunity for a favorable out of court settlement. Similarly, while Tunisian women seeking a divorce find it difficult to produce credible evidence of “harm” at the hands of their husbands, it is equally difficult for the latter to prove their wives “disobedient.” Here, gendered expectations play a role, and the challenge is to prove one’s spouse to be a “bad” husband or wife. And as Voorhoeve points out, judges are left with plenty of room for discretion by the wording of the law. Esther van Eijk’s chapter offers an interesting comparison between the efforts of Syrian Muslim and Catholic courts in attempting to mediate between couples requesting a divorce. Catholic judges put more effort into reconciling couples before granting annulments than Shari‘a court judges do when granting divorces, which may reflect the differences in doctrine on the sanctity of marriage. But it is also probably due to the much lower case load in the Catholic courts. These chapters are informative and sophisticated studies, and they advance our knowledge of how family law in several Muslim countries is debated as well as how it actually works. Middle East Media and Book Reviews Online http://localhost/membr/review.php?id=27 2/2

Middle East Media and Book Reviews Online Volume 1, Issue 1 | Page 50