Why can't a woman be more like a man?

Marriage should not be trap, writes Mamdouh El-Rashidi
Everywhere you go, you will hear that a female relative or friend's divorce case has been postponed. This piece of information is almost invariably followed by the statement: "You know, her case has been in court for so many years." The number of years may vary, but the highest I have heard was 12. Wanting to know why that was so, I put the question to a crowd of ladies and gentlemen among whom were one divorcée; two women trying to obtain their freedom (divorce); one trying to obtain a judgement of khul'; a lawyer whose wife has filed five cases against him, among them one for divorce on the basis of darar (abuse), and the second a request for khul'; an alleged gentleman, whose wife tried unsuccessfully to divorce him for over 10 years and only managed to get rid of him when the khul' law was passed in March 2000, after a suit lasting 16 months; and several others, including an attorney-general, an assistant attorney-general and a psychologist.
The first lady leapt to answer: "A man and a woman with a problem resort to a male judge; what do you expect? That he will take the woman's side? You must be dreaming. A man formulated the law and another man applies it: it's a man's world, my friend." The second woman said: "Marriage is a partnership. Why should one party have the right to dissolve the partnership and not the other?" The third woman demanded: "Why should the man have the right to leave his wife dangling while he remarries? Why shouldn't he be forced to set his first wife free before he is allowed a second one?"
In short, why can't a woman have the same rights as a man? Why does a woman have to prove to the judge that she is the victim of abuse in order to obtain a divorce? Why can't she just say she no longer wants to be married? The latter statement is basically what khul' consists of. I said as much with my eyes fixed on the lawyer in our midst. He began to fidget, and at last said feebly: "I am not divorcing her in the hope that she changes her mind, and I don't want the children to feel that I didn't try hard enough to hold onto the marriage." I couldn't help pointing out that he had already been separated for more than three years and when the�new law was passed his wife filed for khul'.
One of the ladies asked him whether he would divorce his wife if she forfeited all her financial rights. His reply was "no." The lady's spontaneous response was: "You are a sick man." She blurted out the words so naturally that everybody laughed. The psychologist attributed the lawyer's behaviour to his upbringing and to the fact that his male ego had been bruised by his wife filing for divorce.
I then turned to the second man whose wife had divorced him thanks to the khul' law and asked how he had felt when his wife finally got rid of him. He laughed and said: "At least she didn't get what she was after -- the alimony and the flat -- because the children are in my custody now."
I would characterise the first case as that of a male chauvinist and the second as that of a miser who does not want to meet his financial obligations. There are countless such cases, and numerous women continue to suffer: our mothers, sisters, daughters, and even close friends, whose husbands control their destinies fully. I understand that this total control results from a manipulation of Islam: please don't quote verses from the Qur'an pertaining to how well a man should treat a woman, and set her free in a peaceful manner if the marriage doesn't work. I know all the verses, and I also know that these men have the weirdest justifications for their actions, which they cloak in religious garb to make themselves seem pious. These so-called pious men often go a step further, denying their wives the right to see their children, but that's another story.
Such men are a disgrace to Islam; all they do is distort its image. How can we protect women from monsters who appear to be gentlemen when courting; monsters who do not belong to any particular class, whose ugly behaviour is practised by the sons of pashas as well as beggars on the street, by PhD holders and illiterates, by people from every walk of life irrespective of their social status, income group or level of education?
I mentioned to our gathering that the 'isma (a woman's right to divorce herself) should be insisted upon before marriage. All the women in our group wondered whether any man would accept such a condition. I pointed out that giving a woman the right to divorce does not make one less of a man; on the contrary, it shows self-confidence and the mark of a gentleman with good intentions, who will make the woman he loves feel respected, not trapped. This can only make a marriage stronger, for a wife will feel that she is married because she wants to be, and to be wanted is the most flattering thing to any man.
The attorney-general in our group pointed out that the most important matter in applying justice is the speed with which it is carried out; at the time of the Prophet Mohamed, such matters took only a few days to resolve; today, in a nation of 70 million with only 7,000 or so judges, justice is slow.
The problems women encounter have nothing to do with the Shari'a. Legally, women have the right to divorce themselves without losing their right to alimony, whereas with the khul', they lose everything. Every woman should insist on having the 'isma so that she can divorce herself. And every decent man should accept the woman's right to divorce herself -- thereby demonstrating how civilised he really is.
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