In many countries and cultures, men are allowed to divorce their wives unilaterally. Resource persons reported that men used this tool both as a threat to hold over their wives and as a means of divorce.

Divorce & Post-divorce Rights

 
 
Laws and customs relating to the dissolution of marriage vary greatly within the countries involved in the Global Life Stories Project, as they do across Muslim countries and cultures around the world. In some countries, men may terminate their marriages unilaterally and extra-judicially. In some countries, women may initiate divorce but must provide evidence on narrowly defined grounds and/ or be subject to lengthy court procedures. In some countries, men and women may initiate divorce on equal grounds but cultural values or the expected fall in the standard of living post-divorce influences their willingness to do so. Yet in other countries, social attitudes make it relatively easy for both men and women to divorce, and they are not judged negatively for doing so.
 
In some contexts, such as Canada and the United Kingdom, the co-existence of secular family laws and religious customs within individual families or communities create complexities for women. Husbands may initiate religious divorce but not be willing to pursue civil divorce proceedings; wives may find it easy to get a civil divorce but also feel the need for a religious divorce for acceptance in the community or within their own consciences.
 
In general, men and women have different and unequal rights to divorce. Women face gender bias in the judicial system, with inordinate delays when women initiate divorces and their husbands oppose them. The culture of male authority over women impacts women’s access to justice even when women have a right to initiate divorce.
 
Stories from the resource persons help demonstrate various ways marriages can be dissolved and, more importantly, how women experience divorce and process their experiences:
 
 

In many countries and cultures, men are allowed to divorce their wives unilaterally. Resource persons reported that men used this tool both as a threat to hold over their wives and as a means of divorce. It sometimes left the women in a state of uncertainty or without a formal record of the divorce.

 
Naeema from Canada initially had a stable marriage with her husband but found he changed once he started earning and she was no longer the primary breadwinner. He suddenly wanted her to stop working, which she could not contemplate, and to obey him simply because he was her husband. After the couple spent some time apart, her husband suddenly pronounced divorce three times, moved into another room of the house and then was gone. At some point, he married another wife while he and Naeema were still legally married under civil law. Naeema had to arrange the civil divorce, which took about a year.
 
Penda from the Gambia married a religious leader who had proposed to her, following all of the customary rituals with her relatives and village in order to secure their respect. She relates:

After the fourth day when the marriage rituals were done, he came over to spend the night. On returning to his hometown in Basse the following day, he sent me a message saying that he has divorced me. I do not even want to discuss this marriage. He did not love me but wanted to have fun with me.

Nurul from Indonesia was separated from her first husband when he left to work in Malaysia, and was unsure of the status of their marriage. When he returned to Indonesia after a year, she found out that her husband had pronounced talaq (unilateral divorce) before a religious headman, so she was divorced. “The marriage…was not registered legally. So the divorce could also be done easily, arbitrarily and unilaterally by the husband through a local religious leader in the area.”
 
 

When the resource persons wanted to initiate divorce, they were often subjected to lengthy or difficult processes, either because of procedural requirements in the courts or because their husbands tried to delay the process. The women often either needed assistance or support from an outside source to achieve the divorce or they needed to relinquish postdivorce rights.

 
Elham from Iran spent years trapped in a failed marriage, initially stuck between her husband’s and father’s actions, and then in a long and drawn-out divorce process. Her husband committed adultery with other women after their child was born, would go out partying at night, stopped paying her nafaqah (maintenance), threatened her and eventually hit her. After living in limbo for some time while her husband refused to divorce her and her father urged her not to initiate divorce, she finally filed first a claim for nafaqah and then a divorce claim. Her husband played games during the court appearances. Elham had to take additional steps to gather evidence on her husband’s personal and financial situation to make her case, plus record his messages to show the judge he was not acting in good faith. He finally married another woman and immediately consented to a talaq (unilateral) divorce.
 
Sultana, from Bangladesh, decided to divorce her husband after he began to abuse her and married another woman. Since her family was poor and she had no guardian, she asked for assistance from her former employer, a local official and influential man in the village. It was helpful that her marriage was registered with the local government, that her husband did not dispute the divorce since his new wife did not want Sultana around and that she had the support of the community and her influential former employer. Once the divorce was formalized and registered by the chair, she was paid 1500 Bangladeshi taka (USD19.15) as her mahr (dower); she did not receive expenses for the ‘iddah period (the three-month waiting period before the divorce can be finalized).
 
Lila from Canada was trapped in an abusive marriage with a mentally-ill husband. Both she and her husband had converted to Islam and both were eager to learn and practise their new faith, but their understandings came through misogynistic teachers. Lila’s husband demanded that she submit to him completely in every aspect of their life, and she had a difficult time getting out of the marriage. Lila said:

When I wanted to get a divorce, he refused to give me one because he believed he had total rights of divorce and I didn’t. But I had the right of divorce based on multiple conditions—he was mentally ill, abusive, not financially supportive, etc. Any one of those would be sufficient for a juridical divorce, but every single scholar I went to said that they didn’t work.
 
They said that because I went into the marriage supporting him, I didn’t have any expectation of support. Because I went into the marriage knowing he was mentally ill, and then, when he became mentally ill and I stayed, I lost my right to leave...And the abuse—he never abused me ‘illegally’ because he never struck me in the face. He never punched me. He raped me. But I had been told there is no rape in Islam within marriage. So he would claim that all of those things he did to me were actually his rights on me.
 
Finally, somebody put me in touch with a good scholar who said, ‘Look, you’re divorced. This is what you need to do: just tell everybody that you’re divorced. Your situation is sufficient enough to warrant doing that.’

Shafira from Indonesia filed a divorce petition in the Religious Court after her traumatic experiences with her husband. She initially faced a challenge because public servants needed to get permission from their superiors to submit a petition of divorce, but she found a way around this. Still, the process took a year and she had to cover the total costs of the divorce. She also decided not to petition for her property rights—namely, her share of the two houses the couple had purchased—because a ‘divorce consultant’ advised that demanding her share and post-divorce nafaqah would make the process long and tortuous. She is still living in one of the houses but her ex-husband has threatened to evict her if she remarries.
 
Rashida from Nigeria was married at 16. It was a difficult marriage, with her husband not providing adequately for her and her children, preventing her from getting a job and treating her extremely rough sexually. After 16 years, she finally decided to leave him. He tried to persuade her to drop the case and tried to turn her children against her. Her family pressured her not to follow through with the divorce, even promising to pay her children’s school fees. When her husband refused to divorce her, the judge suggested she return the mahr in order to secure a khul‘ divorce. She had reached the point that even if it meant hardship for a while, she was willing to endure it rather than stay with him.
 
Rafeeqa from the United Kingdom was abused by her first husband to the extent that she fled to the police station in fear of her life. She says:

I ended up going to the Shari‘ah council for a divorce, which was an awful experience and very insulting. No one really cared or listened to my story. I went through the court system to get an injunction to stop my ex-husband harassing me. My family was angry I had taken it this far; they wanted me to grant him a permanent visa for the UK. I had sole custody of my daughter. He didn’t really care, as she was a girl and he always wanted a son. I didn’t receive much assistance from anyone...I wanted to send him back to Pakistan but he stayed here. To this day I have never received anything in maintenance from him.

 

Some of the women found it relatively easy to obtain a divorce procedurally, though they sometimes had to give up certain post-divorce rights. Even so, these women reported that the divorce process negatively impacted them emotionally.

 
Asih from Indonesia was surprised that the divorce process went smoothly, in part because her husband did not contest it. Because she initiated the divorce, she had to pay all fees. The judge awarded her custody and alimony, which her ex-husband has never paid. Asih recalls:

The afternoon after the decision was taken by the judge, I did not come home directly but I went to work instead. At that time, I could not wait to spread the good news to my friends who had been so supportive towards me and offered me strength through all my sufferings. But when I got to the office, I did not laugh when I saw my friends, but I cried instead...There were a lot of feelings I had inside. On one hand I was happy that I finally could get out of the torment, but on the other hand I felt really sad to accept the reality that my two children did not have a father anymore.

Mimi from Malaysia remained in her marriage for four years after her husband married a second wife, and then decided to seek a divorce. Her husband refused to divorce her, so she was able to ask for a khul‘ divorce and pay a small fee. However, she recognizes that choosing to divorce and navigating the process can be extremely difficult for women. She started an association to help support single mothers and women who were struggling in their marriages. She says:

After 20 years of doing this, I have to say I hear the same stories over and over again. The main problem is with women finding it hard to get a divorce. They have to wait years and years to get a divorce...It is not easy for a woman to make a decision to go to court. They would have mulled over the decision for a long time. They think about their family; they think about people around them. And, most of all, they think about their children. Some even take 10 years before they dare go to court. They suffer for a long time. It is not an easy decision. For me too, it was not an easy decision, but I had to do what was best for me.