New marriage arrangements in Egypt.

This is part three of a dialogue between Egyptian writer Nawal El Saadawi, and Iranian author Janet Afary. El Saadawi is famous in the Arab world for her outspokenness, particularly on the issue of women’s rights. (Double X interviews her here.) Afary is a professor of religious studies and feminist studies at the University of California-Santa Barbara and the author of Sexual Politics in Modern Iran, the book being discussed in this dialogue. Read part one here and part two here.

Dear Janet,

I appreciate what you said about my writings. I wrote my book The Hidden Face of Eve in Arabic in 1974. It came out in English in 1980, and included my comments on the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran. Many progressive men and women at that time (inside and outside Iran) supported the Islamic revolution, because they wanted to get rid of the Shah’s oppressive regime. But, as we soon realized, the new religious conservative state in Iran became just as oppressive as the old government. The lesson is now obvious: We can’t trade one oppressive regime for another and expect true modernity, or true democracy.

I would take that even one step further. The problem is not just unique to a modern religious state, but applies to a secular capitalist one as well. We women, and men for that matter, can’t have real political or sexual liberation under the American system, either. I realized this when I became aware of the sexual issues my students in the U.S. were facing. They didn’t seem all that different from the problems facing students in Egypt or Iran or Turkey or other Islamic countries. They were very similar, in fact, to the problems between men and women you described in the newly “liberated” Iran.

Since 1993 I have been teaching in different American universities. I used to encourage my students to write creative autobiographies. They wrote about hating men, feeling hopeless about relationships, having three or four abortions before they turned 30, or being single mothers.

I started to realize that the so-called “sexual revolution” in modern America may have made them more sexually active inside and outside marriage, but it had not liberated men or women. American young men in general (as in modern Iran and other modern or postmodern countries) feel little responsibility towards women they sleep with. Over time, I began to realize that sex without social responsibility or emotional commitment leads to new types of slavery and moral degradation.

In Egypt, new kinds of marriage arrangements are emerging, driven by a desire for liberation. Educated, economically independent women reject the state’s Islamic code, which allows men to have multiple wives and divorce at will. Husbands are also looking for sex without the full economic and social responsibility of marriage. This has led to something called El Misiar Marriage. An unmarried woman can have a temporary husband, called the Misiar husband, which means a “mobile” husband who comes and goes, with no marriage obligations or a legal contract. After long media debates, Islamic authorities have declared that this arrangement does not contradict Islam, according to the vague principle of “the necessary allows the forbidden.”

Another type of new marriage is called Oorffy Marriage. (Oorffy in Arabic means social but not official.) According to Oorffy, a woman can marry a man without a legal contract, with no legal obligation on either side. Both are supposedly equal and free in these arrangements. But if a child is born in these arrangements, the mother is responsible. The father has the freedom to deny the marriage and to refuse to give his name to the child.

Tags: Egyptian marriage

Nawal El Saadawi is an Egyptian author whose translated books include: God Dies By the Nile and Woman at Point Zero, and the essay collection The Hidden Face of Eve: Women in the Arab World.

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Women's liberation is not only sexual or economic

By: dsi | Tue, 08/11/2009 - 00:18

I'm currently living in India and am experiencing a whole new dimension of women's inequality that I barely faced in America compared to this. Women are second class in all aspects of life. Although when talking to someone here they can praise women as representing the "Divine Mother" and all the wonderful aspects of a feminine energy- the bottom line is women have no power. You can't even apply for a phone without both your father's and husband's name. My (female) friend's father and husband were both dead and it made the phone company very confused. She put their names on the application anyway. All communication comes down to the man. I'm glad to be married because I have to use my husband as a front to communicate with men that are only interested in hearing from a man. Even in situations where education is equal, I see over and over how what the wife says is perhaps interesting but what the husband says is law. Yes, in America you can encounter unpleasant people who think women are less than. And, we are still working on that hourly wage, equality in the workplace and, in general, being stuck with the responsibilities. But when I come back to America I will kiss the ground because to be discounted in this way every day is not my favorite cup of tea. Luckily I am not dependent on outer reality for my happiness-else I'd be really depressed. I asked an Indian friend about equality of women and by the look on her face I could tell I had brought up something taboo. She then made some comment that she enjoys being "behind the scenes" because then she doesn't have all the responsibilities. Given only what I've read, India is advanced compared to Arabic countries. I do not know this from my own experience. However, I would rather deal with the American level of inequality for women than have to go back to the stone age in countries like India and other patriarchal countries.

Does marriage provide real protection?

By: drk | Sat, 08/01/2009 - 21:31

My "personal" life has been shaped very much by social and political forces. The most devastating mistake I made in life was getting married. In the US, marriage does not provide protections to the most competent, it creates liabilities. I was responsible for my husband's debts although I knew nothing about them. Welcome to bankruptcy. I was unable to list and sell my house (the mortage in my name) without his permission. Hello, foreclosure. The judge awarded our only vehicle (which my father had given to me) to him, leaving me without a car. I am required by court order to reside of the county where I am currently and I'm required to keep the court informed of my living arrangements. What's "facism" again? It cost upward of $50K in attorney fees to divorce him. Thank Goddess, I didn't have to pay the lazy, lying, thieving creep alimony.

A vial of sperm would have been a heck of a lot cheaper and easier. If you've got a problem with that, then look at marriage and divorce laws, but don't carry on with blather about how marriage is actually somehow liberating for women. It may provide stability for some, but there are no guarantees. Whether a man will provide for his family is and always has been up to him. Even with marriage, vast numbers do not. In the US, anyway, they don't have to.

Now, perhaps women in other parts of the world get more protections through marriage, but nothing I've heard convinces me of that. What kind of "social and economic responsibility" can a traditional marriage enforce in reality? What kind of material benefits arise? Perhaps the Egyptian women don't see that legal and social system there will make marriage of benefit to them either. At least with a non-marriage, they know where they stand going in.

Your personal life is NOT the

By: Usama3 | Wed, 07/29/2009 - 17:40

Your personal life is NOT the model for the rest of mankind. Children do better with two parents. In fact they need both parents to better understand interpersonal relationships. It seems narcissistic, self centered, for adults to seek to reproduce without have a partner/spouse and thus intentionally deny a child/children of another parent.

The fact that the Western culture has decriminalized sex outside of marriage and has relegated the family to being an anomaly of society rather than its pillar is an indication of the decline.

Parenting is easier as a single woman

By: drk | Mon, 07/27/2009 - 19:18

I've got to say, I'm much freer post-divorce than I was before it. And if there had been a cheaper, easier way out of my marriage, all the better. I don't have the legal right to change my children's surname even though their father does nothing whatsoever to support them.

Really, I should never have married, slept around, and then, when it came time to have babies, purchased the necessary genetic material and done it myself.

I'd be in a lot better shape financially and not burdened by court orders (divorce papers) that tell me where I can live and where I need to be on Friday nights and Sunday afternoons. And I'd have saved 50K or so in attorney fees.

The author does have a point.

By: cb713 | Thu, 07/09/2009 - 02:35

The author does have a point. It's that even under the guise of sexual liberation, women are saddled with responsibility of having and raising a child whereas the men are absolved of this responsibility, like in the Oorffy marriages. Marriage in that sense is a completely bogus term and from Nawal's description, is a pretty excuse for a man and woman to have sex outside marriage. Like dating in Western countries. And like the U.S., if the woman gets pregnant, the man has no responsibility because he's never the one stuck carrying the thing. Of course women everywhere should be allowed to chose who they want to date, have sex with but I think Nawal has a point. It's not complete liberation if all the responsibility for sex, from birth control to pregnancy to child rearing, is placed on women. Men are just as involved; they need to own up to it. It seems society as a whole needs to change how it thinks about sex.

Its sad that after decades of

By: Usama3 | Wed, 07/08/2009 - 12:08

Its sad that after decades of advocating 'sexual liberation', she has only recently begun to realize negative effects of 'liberation'. She didn't mention how in America, segments of the society are literally collapsing under the liberalizing effects of deconstructing social identities. The family unit amongst poor whites and black community is fragmented to cause several generations of people who no longer understand what a family means. Single family households are nearly 80% in many urban areas, the black community nationwide has a rate of 60%. The larger white community has passed the 20% mark which analysts recognize to be the benchmark for collapse and exponential increases thereafter.

Egypt, poor, still undergoing the pains that developing countries, is not equipped to deal with consequences of following American and European idea os sexual liberation. Gays in America and Europe enjoy unprecedented power and influence most notably because they are led and dominated by white males, the most privileged and powerful segment of society. AIDS and HIV continue within the gay community because gay white males refuse to change their destructive sexual practices since medical advancements allow for HIV to be managed.

Meanwhile, there are over a million abortions a year in America. There are 100s of 1000s of sexual assaults and 1 in 5 American women have been sexually assaulted. STDs are continually growing in numbers, with HPV and herpes as the most prevalent. Even syphillis and gonorhea have resurfaced in gay communities and liberal sex communities. In Europe, prostitution is widespread and legal. Sexual slavery is closely connected.
Egypt is struggling with an authoritarian regime that has run on martial law for almost 30 years. Its simply incorrect to assume normal or healthy social developments can emerge from such a state of affairs. In addition, poverty, unemployment, economic monopolization and economic liberalization all contribute to disjointed social relations. Pointing out instances of problems here or there is doing an injustice without mentioning the mitigating factors.

Egypt has to form a longer term goal which it is seeking and not merely emulate the West.

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