Religious Divorce Research Articles

Divorce Bureaucracy in the Sharia Space: Examining Practices in Langsa City, Aceh

Divorce in the community is often understood differently between Islamic law, the State, and customary law. Each of these laws has a fundamental legal basis regarding the concept of divorce. The impact of differences in the legal concept of divorce results in different Muslim communities in the process of terminating marital relations. This research aims to examine further how the divorce bureaucracy in Indonesia affects the divorce process in the community. This paper results from an empirical study with a socio-legal study approach, this approach is used to review how divorce in society is practiced. Data was obtained from interviews with relevant parties. To strengthen the data and analysis, this research also uses several empirical research results and other important articles related to this paper. The results show that the divorce bureaucracy in Langsa City, Aceh still leaves problems caused by differences in viewpoints and interests so that divorce outside the court still occurs. The difference in perspective is based on the understanding that divorce is legal if it fulfills the provisions of Islamic law. On the other hand, people who are aware of the law have the view that divorce must be done before the court. The bureaucracy of divorce, which involves administration and the conditions that must be met, makes divorce considered complicated and takes a long time. Conversely, religious divorce does not require a long time and cost. In addition, the interest in a quick process without the need for an administrative process also influences the divorce bureaucracy. Non-judicial mediation at the village level is essential for reducing divorce rates and reducing divorce bureaucracy.

‘Ye Shall Do No Injustice in Judgment’—Are Religious Courts to Blame for the Agunah Problem?

Abstract Orthodox Judaism requires women to receive a religious divorce (Get) from their husbands in order to remarry. The ‘Agunah problem’ refers to the phenomenon whereby husbands deny a Get for financial reasons or pure malice, placing women in a state of limbo where they cannot remarry under Jewish law. According to Daniel Greenberg, newly appointed Parliamentary Standards Commissioner and the author of a recent monograph on the topic, the problem is largely the fault of the divorce procedures followed by religious courts, which may also be in violation of criminal and human rights law. This article contends with Greenberg’s claims, concluding that most of them are based on flawed assumptions of fact or misunderstandings of English or Jewish law. Get refusal is attributable to Get refusers, not the religious courts who enjoy a mere supervisory role in the Jewish divorce process. However, the article does recommend that religious courts providing divorce services improve their levels of transparency to prevent further misunderstandings about the way they operate.

Listening to Muslim Women’s Lived Expertise Concerning Surviving Family Violence and Seeking Islamic Community Divorce in the Australian Context: A Qualitative Analysis of Muslim Women's, Community/religious Leader’s, and professional Responder’s Perspectives

Abstract Many Muslim women in Australia seek religious divorce through various community processes, as religious divorce is often perceived to be more personally and spiritually significant than a civil divorce. Many Muslim women seek religious divorce because their current or former husbands have used domestic and family violence and coercive control against them and their children. The article is based on an Australian Research Council-funded qualitative research project exploring Muslim women’s experiences of Sharia community divorce processes in Australia. This multi-site research project took place across two major Australian cities between 2016 and 2020 and involved in-depth semi-structured interviews with 63 participants including, Muslim women, community/religious leaders and professional responders (for example lawyers, psychologists, community support and domestic and family violence workers) who have experience of supporting women through community divorce processes. This article explores Muslim women’s lived expertise to guide helpful and transformative responses to domestic and family violence in the context of religious divorce in Australia.

Muslim Women, Nikah Marriages, Domestic Abuse and Religious Arbitration in England

Abstract This article explores the underlying causes and motivations surrounding non-legally binding Islamic marriages or nikah-only marriages, and their impact on dispute resolution and the process of obtaining a religious divorce, with a special focus on women experiencing domestic abuse. It draws on empirical data from a study of Islamic divorce in the UK. Inspired by phenomenological approaches, the research involved in-depth interviews with British-Muslim women to gain a well-grounded understanding of the problems associated with Muslim marriage, domestic abuse, and divorce from their lived experiences. Furthermore, the study involved interviews with experts associated with providing informal mediation and religious arbitration ranging from imams to Sharia council judges, as well as professionals such as solicitors and counsellors. Sharia council hearings were also observed and their procedural documents were analysed. The data collected were analysed using a thematic approach, and the emergent themes from the rich data provide a detailed insight into the research problem, firmly embedded in the lived experience of British Muslims.

Competing Authorities

North American Muslims seeking to resolve their private disputes confront multifaceted access to justice issues. Since Islamic marriage and divorce laws do not always align with North American family legislative schemes, Muslims are burdened with trying to simultaneously meet their obligations toward both legal systems. Unlike secular law, Islamic divorce proceedings require either the husband’s eventual consent or the availability of a Muslim judge. They also prescribe substantive obligations and rights for divorcees that are comparable to corollary relief provided by family law statutes. The absence of religious quasi-judicial dispute resolutions poses barriers to Muslims obtaining a religious divorce or annulment, and to acquiring subsequent relief, such as financial settlements and custody, in accordance with their religious beliefs. To respond to these overlapping barriers, this paper analyzes forms of Islamic legal authority to grant religious divorce or annulment, and to mediate or arbitrate corollary relief using religious law. The paper concludes with recommendations for a holistic framework to settle family disputes in compliance with Islamic law and in a legally enforceable manner.

Perceptions and Interpretations of Divorced Individuals About Official and Religious Divorce

Perceptions and Interpretations of Divorced Individuals About Official and Religious Divorce

A Canadian story of Jewish divorce: listening to rabbis across denominations wrestle with egalitarianism and K'lal Yisrael.

This ethnographic interview-based research (2016–2021) analyzes the narratives of a cohort of rabbis in Ottawa who share their experiences of Jewish divorce. Jewish religious divorce is gendered and asymmetrical where the husband gives the divorce to the passively receiving wife who may not herself initiate divorce. This project interrupts the ways in which Jewish divorce is primarily identified in terms of get abuse in the Orthodox world. The asymmetrical divorce process contributes to get abuse, which includes delaying, refusing, or extorting favourable terms in exchange for the husband providing the wife with her get (religious divorce). Women who cannot secure divorces are known as agunot (singular agunah, chained women), who cannot remarry and who commit adultery if they have sexual relations with another man. Women face the additional burden that if they bear children to anyone other than their husband, such children would have the status of mamzerim (singular mamzer, legally illegitimate, product of an illicit union) who may not marry other Jews except other mamzerim, who may not hold certain positions of communal leadership, and whose status is inherited from generation to generation. This gendered injustice becomes the focus of scholarship even as it arouses both communal activism and internal debates. While get abuse is most common in the Orthodox Jewish community, our interviews with Canadian rabbis reveals that Jewish divorce is a transdenominational phenomenon that plays out within and across denominational boundaries. Against a backdrop of increasing stringency in the Orthodox world transnationally, and intensifying concern for the consequences of inegalitarian Jewish divorce, rabbinic stories point to shifting denominational practice. This transdenominational context is key to understanding Jewish divorce in North America. Attending to Jewish divorce in Canada through a denominational lens does important work in disentangling systemic and local factors. We argue that rabbinic stories about how rabbis engage with divorce reveals how the twin challenges of egalitarianism and rabbinic concerns for the unity and continuity of the Jewish people (K’lal Yisrael) shape the experience of Jewish divorce and divorce practice itself. Jewish divorce impacts women in particularly gendered ways but is largely interpreted and practiced by male rabbis. Through our original theoretical framework of “troubling orthopraxy”, we analyse how orthopraxy (correct divorce practice) is conflated with stringency, and how that dynamic pushes and pulls at divorce practice.

Pandangan Ulama Tentang Penerapan Ikrar Talak di Depan Pengadilan Agama (Studi Multi Situs Ulama Salafiyah Paculgowang dan Tambakberas Jombang)

Basically the imposition of divorce was in the hands of the husband but the husband as head of the household are not authorized to do violence to his wife in the case of divorces wife because according to Islamic Fiqh if the husband had dropped the word divorce the wife , it is said to fall divorce, it is this which relied upon by the scholars - ulma in taking legal , but differ in implementation divorce divorce enshrined in the Act No.1 of 1974 on marriage , as amended . Government Regulation No. 9 of 1975, as amended . Law No. 7 of 1989 on the Religious Courts, jo . Presidential Instruction No.1 of 1991 on the Compilation of Islamic Law (KHI ). In this research, the authors take the problem is : How do you view paculgowang scholars and Tambakberas on the application of divorce pledge in front of the religious courts , and sociological analysis of the views of scholars of Islamic law on divorce in front of the religious courts . The aim of this study was to determine how the views of scholars about the imposition of religious divorce before the court and outside the court religion , and how their opinions concerning the imposition of divorce according to Islamic law sociology .Some of this research is in compliance with the objectives expected by the researcher , in this studythe researchers used a qualitative approach to the type of field research, research. While the data collected in the form of primary and secondary data using interview and documentation . To facilitate the checking of data in checking the validity of the data , researchers used two methods: triangulation and verification is used to check the truth of affirmations religious divorce before a court , that there is more data in the edit , inspected and carefully prepared and organized in such a way that is then analyzed with descriptive qualitative. Based on available data can be analyzed that the scholars paculgowang and Tambakberas still cling to the classical fiqh and less regard for existing law . They must pledge not agree with divorce in front of the religious court , they reasoned divorce can fall anywhere on the court without religion .
 Keywords: Ikrar Talak, Situs Ulama Salafiyah, Hukum Islam

To have and to hold: Emotional distress, divorce denial, and the politics of interspousal torts

Abstract While domestic abuse can manifest itself in many forms, one example of abuse within the divorce process is the denial of the religious divorce. In Jewish law, the parties must transact a bill of divorce (known as a get) before they are divorced. If a spouse refuses to cooperate with this process, they limit their former partner’s ability to date and remarry within the community, effectively maintaining coercive control post-divorce. This article will examine whether or not victims of get refusal would be able to recover monetary awards under the tort doctrine of Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress (IIED). This article will argue that while the facts of get refusal meet the central elements of the tort of IIED, these cases are unlikely to succeed in most states due to the court system’s reluctance to apply IIED to interspousal torts. The reasons behind this hesitation draw on the complex history of domestic abuse and tort law, and historical legal prioritizations of family privacy over abuse victims’ safety. Additionally, I will explore the history of the IIED tort as a vehicle for social change and examine how IIED can still play that role today. Ultimately, I will argue for the necessity of courts’ abandoning lasting vestiges of the marital privacy doctrine and providing redress to victims of this insidious form of domestic abuse.

Equalizing gendered access to Jewish divorce in South Africa

This paper explores potential solutions to address the unequal access of Jewish women to religious divorce known as a get in the legal context of South Africa. We assess rabbinical and state (judicial and legislative) responses to the issue of get refusal in Orthodox and Conservative South African Jewish communities and show that there are significant limitations to the effectiveness of their responses. By drawing on South African case law and parallel rulings on religious entanglement in the United States of America, we illustrate the legal viability of judicial enforcement of a ketubah (Jewish marriage contract) in South Africa. In particular, we argue that inclusion, recognition, and enforcement of maintenance clauses in the ketubah by South African courts can incentivize recalcitrant husbands to issue a get. We further address the need for legislation to solidify the judicial enforceability of a ketubah, thereby ensuring timely and equitable access to religious divorce for Jewish women in South Africa.

PERTIMBANGAN HAKIM DALAM MENENTUKAN HAK ASUH ANAK AKIBAT PERCERAIAN AGAMA HINDU DI BALI

The prominent legal issues in balinese law can be classified in two problems, inheritance and purusa ( descendant ), purusa is an inherent status (comonly for male) after marriage. If there is later a divorce, the judge must consider the decision in applying the law that was enforced in deciding the divorce case. 
 Referring to Balinese customary law, when there is a divorce, the child's custody will fall on the purusa / father because the child will become a descendant of the father's family, whereas in the Decision of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Indonesia number: 126K / Pdt. / 2001 dated August 28, 2003 states that "If the father and mother divorce, then the care of the underage child is left to the closest and familiar person to the child, namely the mother". Therefore, the basis for weighing judges in determining custody of children in Hindu religious divorce in Balinese customary law is to combine two legal mechanisms between customary law and national law, where from the aspect of Balinese customary law which adheres to the purusa system, the right is on the purusa party but because the child is still underage, the child is under the mother's care until the child become an adult, and mother can not prevent the child to exercising rights and obligations in the father's family as purusa.

Khulʿ Divorce in the Netherlands: Dutch Muslim Women Seeking Religious Divorce

In this article, the author examines the ways in which a number of Dutch Muslim women try to obtain an Islamic divorce. The road to a divorce, often long and winding, does not always lead to a satisfactory conclusion. I explore the question of why it can be difficult for Muslim women to obtain a religious divorce. Drawing on recent empirical research into the phenomenon of ‘marital captivity’ – a situation in which someone is unable to terminate a (religious) marriage, I examine the case of a Dutch Muslim woman who, at the instigation of a civil court, managed to negotiate a khulʿ agreement with her ‘ex’-husband, who released her from the marital bond. This exceptional example of a khulʿ practice in the Netherlands attests to the versatility of this under-researched form of Islamic divorce and how it is used in a Muslim minority context in Europe.

Comment on the Report of the Siddiqui Review Panel, 2018

AbstractControversies over the possible application of Islamic law and practice (Shari’a) in the UK have been gathering pace since the mid-2000s. In 2016 two official inquiries were set in train, one of which, chaired by Mona Siddiqui, Professor of Islamic and Interreligious Studies, Edinburgh University, reported in February 2018. The Siddiqui Panel focused on two principal issues: the civil registration of Islamic marriages (nikah), and the role of Shari’a councils in the issuing of a religious (not civil) divorce. The paper sets out the background to the Shari’a debate in the UK, reviews the Panel’s recommendations on the two issues, and assesses their implications.

Khulʿ Divorce in the Netherlands: Dutch Muslim Women Seeking Religious Divorce

In this article, the author examines the ways in which a number of Dutch Muslim women try to obtain an Islamic divorce. The road to a divorce, often long and winding, does not always lead to a satisfactory conclusion. I explore the question of why it can be difficult for Muslim women to obtain a religious divorce. Drawing on recent empirical research into the phenomenon of ‘marital captivity’ – a situation in which someone is unable to terminate a (religious) marriage, I examine the case of a Dutch Muslim woman who, at the instigation of a civil court, managed to negotiate a khulʿ agreement with her ‘ex’-husband, who released her from the marital bond. This exceptional example of a khulʿ practice in the Netherlands attests to the versatility of this under-researched form of Islamic divorce and how it is used in a Muslim minority context in Europe.

Procedure of Issuing Religious Divorce and Resolving Matrimonial Disputes at Sharīʿah Councils in the uk

Abstract The unavailability of civil courts to hear cases relating to Muslim family law and other related matters persuaded community leaders and religious scholars in the United Kingdom to establish several Sharīʿah councils. This article explores the role played by these councils in resolving matrimonial disputes, especially the process and procedure of issuing an Islamic divorce. Library and empirical research methods were employed. Three main uk Sharīʿah councils were visited wherein mediation and arbitration sessions, as well as monthly meetings, were observed to examine how disputes are handled and decisions made. The study leads to several findings. Mediation and arbitration are the main methods used in the process, and despite the relative success of Sharīʿah councils, they face challenges resulting from the dichotomy and overlapping jurisdictions of Islamic and English family law and the non-alignment of divorce issued by uk courts and religious divorce.

SANKSI HUKUM TERHADAP PELAKU TALAK DI LUAR PENGADILAN AGAMA

Divorce out of court Religion is considered reasonable by some circles. But, actually that action is contrary to the Act No. 1 of 1974 article 39 that containing a moral message that divorce only be done in front of the Court of Session. Even in the article there is a clause of divorce mayhappen after the relevant Court attempted to reconcile the two sides. The researchers see the ambiguity based on need a new form of ijtihad gave rise to sanctions for perpetrators of Religious divorce out of court. The researcher using field research type because the research was did in the field. This research is descriptive, and the data sourceobtained from the results of interviews with academics positive law and academics Islamic law in Malang. The focus in this research are includes three ways, that are the position of the sanctions in the matter of divorce out of court Religion according to Islamic law, academics positive law view and Islamic academics law view in Malang, about divorce out of court sanction of religion. In this thesis, the researcher found the results of this research that is the sanctions law against divorce out of court Religion serves as reinforcement of laws and nas} in the Qur'an, it is as a deterrent so that doesn't happen as much divorce politico hated God. The researchers choosethe legal sanction is the correct choice to given to perpetrators of Religious divorce out of court, legal sanctions in the form of a prohibition to perform a new marriage. In addition to fine sanctions that are capable of inflicting deterrent effect to offenders of religious divorce, out of court, so that someone will do a divorce before the trial Court religion, and also obedient to the Administration that have been arrange by the government.

Marital Outcomes and Consideration of Divorce Among Orthodox Jews After Signing a Religious Prenuptial Agreement to Facilitate Future Divorce

ABSTRACTThis study examined marital satisfaction, marital adjustment, and consideration of divorce among Orthodox Jews in North America (N = 2,652). These marital outcomes were compared for individuals who signed or did not sign a religious prenuptial agreement that facilitates a woman’s future ability to receive a religious divorce from her husband. Results indicated a higher level of marital satisfaction among those who signed the religious prenuptial agreement, and no significant difference in marital adjustment or tendency to consider divorce between groups of individuals who signed or did not sign the religious prenuptial agreement.

Creating Legal Difference: The Impossible Divorce of Russian Jews in Early Twentieth-Century France

Much of the scholarship on Jewish divorce assumes that civil marital laws are beneficial to Jews. This article complicates that assumption by focusing on a rarely acknowledged aspect of Jewish immigration in France. As France moved towards a stricter understanding of the separation of church and state, civil courts rejected the possibility of applying religious divorce laws to foreigners. Combined with the French practice of applying foreign law in cases involving immigrants, this shift resulted in Russian Jews being denied the right to civil divorce from 1905 to the 1920s. The confessional nature of Russian divorce thus continued to shape the lives of Russian Jews even after their immigration to France. The case of Russian Jewish divorce casts light on the shifting and contradictory understandings of the separation of church and state in France during the early years of the twentieth century.

Religious Service Attendance, Divorce, and Remarriage Among U.S. Women

Religious participation can promote marital satisfaction and stability. However, current literature has mainly used cross-sectional data. We prospectively evaluated the associations between service attendance and either 1) divorce or separation; or 2) remarriage in the Nurses’ Health Study, a large prospective cohort study that consisted of US married female nurses, with repeated measures of service attendance and marital status. During 14 years of follow up, among 66,444 married nurses, frequent services attendance was associated with 50% lower risk of divorce (95% CI: 32%, 63%). Among divorced or separated women, frequent service attendance was not associated with likelihood of remarriage; however, among widowed women, frequent service attendance was associated with a 49% increased likelihood of remarriage (95% CI: 13%, 97%). The study provides evidence that frequent services attendance is associated with lower risk of becoming divorced, and increased likelihood of remarriage among widowed women, but not among divorced or separated women.

AI v. MT [2013] EWHC 100 (Fam)

In AI v. MT, the High Court gave effect to an agreement on both financial and children issues reached following non-binding arbitration by rabbinical authorities in New York. This case note considers religious marriages and divorces in English law, and the role of religious arbitration as a form of alternative dispute resolution in family court cases. It raises questions about the protections currently available to those of some faiths, and about the appropriateness of religious arbitration in cases concerning children.