Marriage, Money, and Divorce in Medieval Islamic Society

Abstract

Through a very meticulous reading in numerous Arabic sources, YossefRapoport, author of Marriage, Money, and Divorce in Medieval IslamicSociety, challenges the commonplace assumption that women in medievalArabic society were subordinated to male domination. Drawing from therich Arabic literature written during the Mamluk period (1250-1517), he notonly skillfully depicts marital life in Cairo, Damascus, and Jerusalem, butalso reveals novel facts that might undermine common stereotypes ofwomen in medieval Islamic society. For example, not only was there a highrate (about 30 percent) of divorce in these three Mamluk urban societies, butwomen were also single-handedly capable of providing for themselves andtheir children. Elite women were economically independent, thanks to thegenerous dowries they received upon marriage, while lower-class womenworked for their living, particularly in the textile industry. True, “repudiation”(talaq) was a unilateral privilege reserved for the husband only; however,there were many cases of consensual separation (khul`).The women in this book do not appear as passive and submissive at all.Quite the contrary, some put a price on various aspects of their relationshipswith their husbands, including a “bed-fee” (haqq al-firashah), while othersappeared before the court to complain about their husbands’ misbehavior.More often than not, the court sided with them by ordering the husbands tobe flogged or thrown into jail. All of these facts, carefully supported bydozens of textual proofs and cautiously analyzed and contextualized, enablethe reader to catch a glimpse of the intimate lives of medieval Muslim families,a glimpse that is free of prejudice and self-righteousness ...