
Muslim Women in India Ask Top Court to Ban Instant Divorce - happy-go-lucky
http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/03/26/521362478/muslims-in-india-ask-top-court-to-ban-instant-divorce
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JulianMorrison
A marriage should end when either of the parties want it to end, or else it's
no longer consensual. I don't believe in forcing people to stay married. But
divorce still needs to mean splitting the finances so nobody is left destitute
and without skills for employment. Alimony was invented for a reason. Before
it existed, divorce was immensely cruel.

(Contrast: [https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/mar/24/tini-
ow...](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/mar/24/tini-owens-
trapped-loveless-marriage-judges-refuse-divorce) )

~~~
AvenueIngres
Doesn't the US has something like a 51% divorce rate? if you accept the
premise that the nuclear family is a cornerstone of western civilization I can
see why you would not be ecstatic at the idea of making marriage a trivial
thing. Should we allow the individual to have every one of its desires in
reach of fulfillment?

Though I concede that there is a point in allowing unhappy marriages to part
away, after all, why live unhappy when someone else just for the sake of
conforming. However, if appealing on the surface; I wonder if that could be in
fact a local optimum that negatively affects society on the long term. I'm
genuinely curious to know what do you think?

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ucaetano
"if you accept the premise that the nuclear family is a cornerstone of western
civilization"

Individual rights are the cornerstone of modern western civilization, not the
nuclear family.

~~~
AvenueIngres
>Individual rights are the cornerstone of modern western civilization, not the
nuclear family.

Sure. Individual rights are the cornerstone of modernism. Western civilization
predates the French Revolution.

~~~
ucaetano
Yep, that's why there's a "modern" in there.

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nindalf
There are a couple of key incidents in India's history that led to the current
situation

1\. Soon after India become an independent nation in 1947, Prime Minister
Jawaharlal Nehru sought to create a single civil code for the entire country.
Although it had one criminal code, created by the British in 1860, there was
no civil code that applied to all citizens in all of the previously British
provinces or the hundreds of tiny and large states ruled by Nawabs, Princes
and Maharajas. There was considerable opposition to this, especially to
clauses that would have allowed women an equal share in ancestral property. It
took almost a decade to see this though parliament and into law because of how
much opposition this had. Its worth remembering that as the party that won
India its Independence, Nehru had more support in Parliament than any
government since, except one. At some point though, Nehru decided to exclude
Muslims from the ambit of the Code, simply because it would have likely sunk
the bill. All the leaders who had any pull with the Muslim community had left
to Pakistan and there was simply no one who could convince the remaining
Muslims that ditching Sharia for the new Code would be beneficial. So the
Hindu code bills[1] were passed. (Incidentally, it applied to Jains, Sikhs and
Buddhists as well)

2\. In 1978 a woman named Shah Bano Begum [2] was divorced by her husband and
left destitute. She sued for alimony and was granted it by the local courts.
Her ex-husband appealed to the Supreme Court, which rejected his appeal. The
Prime Minister at that time, Rajiv Gandhi then passed a law ironically called
The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986, that nullified
the Supreme Court's judgment in the Shah Bano judgment. He did so for he
feared that he would lose votes in the next election if he didn't.

And that is the reason that Muslim women in India get such a raw deal.
However, the party in power at the centre and in most states is the BJP, a
party that does not seek any Muslim votes to win elections. They have also
been promising a Civil Code that will apply to all citizens for about 2
decades now. Some time next year, they will have the numbers in both Houses of
Parliament to make that a reality.

The main sticking point that will be difficult to reconcile is that Muslim men
are allowed to marry multiple times while the current Hindu Civil Code doesn't
allow that. If a Uniform Code is enacted, the status of these existing
marriages would be in question.

[1] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_code_bills](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_code_bills)

[2] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohd._Ahmed_Khan_v._Shah_Bano_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohd._Ahmed_Khan_v._Shah_Bano_Begum)

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dan7678
That's incredibly unfortunate... in areas like that, people hardly know a
thing about Islam but can label themselves Muslims and then pretend they're
practicing it. Preference of boys over girls as children in Islam is a huge
sin -- written so explicitly in the Qur'an. But the families and people
described in the story clearly don't care and thus are hardly Muslims. I hope
she finds a safer setting soon.

With that said, divorce in a Muslim setting is no free lunch. The couple
agrees before the marriage on a certain amount of money (or any other thing)
given to the woman in case of divorce. The only time that isn't given is when
the woman asks for it herself (for obvious reasons -- the woman can 'play' the
man into a marriage in very lenient divorce terms, and divorce on purpose
afterwards for it). Not sure what the terms of divorce were for this woman and
her past 3 marriages, but she should be careful what she agrees on.

~~~
elastic_church
If you think any of those things are absolutes then you are in for a bad time

Even Shariah relies on interpretation

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dan7678
Are you claiming it's an opinion or something "up for interpretation" whether
it's a sin to prefer boys over girls in Islam? Or it's an opinion or only an
interpretation that woman are allowed an agreement before the marriage
regarding the circumstances for divorce in Islam?

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elastic_church
yep. all.

want to go to war about it? actually idgaf I'm just here for the oil

