[oman-l] On women and marriage

[Rashid]

>Oman
>A statute has been agreed, under which Omani women may divorce under special
>circumstances.
	This statute has been issued as a major part of the constitutional
law last year.  It examins several aspects of the Omani society, a change
for the best.  This law is based on the Islamic Sharia which provides even
more rights (if applied) to the women than any constitution in the Arab
World does. It was published in Oman Observer in full three large newspaper
pages.

>Firstly, if their husband is not financially supporting them
>in the event of a long separation. Secondly, if their husband is missing
>for more than a
>year, or is jailed
>for 3 years or more.
	Previously, the women can ask for divorce in the first case and the
in the second case, if the husband is abscent even for six months.

 The law provides men the right to bring his parents
>and children by
>a previous marriage to the matrimonial home, but denies the same rights to
>women.
	Becasue the is the way customs go, usually the whole family live
together, I mean parents with their married sons but not with the
daughters.  The son would not kick his parents out when he gets married, at
the same time, he can not afford the wife's family along with, it costs a
lot! So parents live with their sons and so do the parents of the married
daughter. They parents would not live with their daughters husband wheather
the "law" allowed or not. However, if a single old parent does not have a
son, the husband usually does not mind he/she lives with them.
It is a matter of respect and mutual understanding, not a law.

>The wife can however, prevent a husband from bringing in another wife (in
>Dubai Islamic
>law allows them four).
	What is Dubai Islamic Law?? Islam generally allows four only if you
treat them equally, not so common these days, although nothing wrong with
that in our system.

The new law specifies 18 as the minimum age for
>marriage; thismay have a considerable impact on a society which commonly
>marries cousins
>at a very young age. Source: Beijing95 Network.
	Yes, this is the only part that did not make since 20 years ago.
Now when I am 28 and NOT married yet, it does make a lot of sense to me!!
________________________________________________________________


Ian Robertson wrote in his textbook 'SOCIOLOGY' page: 65;

"The norms and values of a culture cannot be arbitrarily judged by those of
another culture. From the view point of American culture, the traditional
Middle Eastern practice of hiding the entire female body from view seems
silly;
from the point of view of [the] Bedouin women from Oman, the American
practice of exposing so much of the female body to public view would be
shameful and obscene. Neither view point is objectively "right", for each
practice can be fully understood only in its own context"

Why marry more than one?!

This issue has been discussed extensively from Islamic perspective but this
did not satisfy those how do not believe in Islam and also those who are
still not convinced with this idea.  I would like to throw in this subject
to this list to see how each side look at it with the hope that there is
enough tolerance to others point of view.  I should however, that this is
my own views, regardless of the strings attached!
First, I would like to mention that there is a great difference between
what is traditional and what is Islamic to avoid confusion.  When people
write about something they observeed in a country from the "third world"
specifically, the 'back-home' idealism come sinto their thinking without
any regard to the circumstances, experiences and realities that led to such
behavior or "tradition" of that country.  The multiple dimensions theory
disappear when it comes to other countries traditions and life styles,
where thing can be Judge only by the viewers (who is most of the time
foreigner)  ideologies.  Although each tradition that any society lives
with does have a purpose and it does mean something to that society, it may
not have the same effect on the foreigner in that country or that society.

Most of the books that have been written prior to 1990 about Oman are
dealing with the past-present situations.  Past becomes they are no longer
valid and present when the authors wrote about them.  Authors did not
recognize the fact that prior to the 1970 there was only 3 school (under
high school) with only 300 students or less.  That says that most of the
people are not aware or not educated enough to understand foreign
perspective on certain issues like getting married with four wives, instead
they go after that tradition and "as father as son".  Therefore, many of
the authors who write about the social behaviors (Sociologists and
Anthropologists mostly) are giving the wrong images which can last for long
before that author comes back to the country and change his/her mind.
Let me make my point from agricultural perspective, see if can you question it?
In the past decades before oil and information age, agriculture was and
still the only source of income. People lived a tribal groups to protect
their crops from being stolen by others.  The conclusion is we need more
individuals are needed for farming as well as protection.  Marrying more
than one women at that time will help the family feed themselves hence
there are more individuals that includes women and children and thus will
produce more.  In addition, the tribe is more secure and better strengthen
because someone's daughter is with another man who would support her and
would prevent future conflicts between the two families or the two tribes
in most cases. And to make sure that no consequences can result from this
marriage, many tend to marry their daughters within the tribe itself, just
in case a conflict is encountered.  So now there is a demand for more
individuals in that particular family or tribe and hence the religion
allows then why not.  It is obviously not for sex.  While this might give
the impression that women are labors if not sex targets, the fact the man
is the main supporter denies this idea.  Hence feeding the children and
women is solely the responsibility of the man, no matter what the
conditions are. i.e. drought, no market, no produce this year, etc.
Even then, these people have great respect and appreciation for women
beyond that of modern feminism movements and human rights, which does not
work even in modern societies.  Islamic teachings ( the same can be true
for any religion) insists on that but the fact is the tradition ignore the
religious teachings in most part.  Therefore, there is a need for
straightining things out again and make sure these rules will not be
overshadowed by some falsey traditional behaviors.  That's what the new
Social Statute Law brought back, while did not come with something new!
This will make the new "law" works because people are now educated enough
to know that what they have been doing is wrong and this is what is right.
The change is not going to happen in most cases (and here is the abuse),
even with educated people, without a government law.  The governments gave
the women the chnaces to appear to the world and say "hello, we want to
change that dark image", while the new roles of women has been there but
someone has to get the message clear abroad.  Let us do a little comparison
to stream you up and please correct me if I am wrong. In the US which has
the highest rate of divorce in the world, there has been no signle women
voted president (and not sure if ever there has been Vice President?),
while in countries like Bangladish and Pakistan as an example, women were
elected PMs.  Now compare the images of the women in Pakistan for example
with that of the US?!
Finally, when we have jobs and we are educated, our look at the women,
thankfully, has improved while our original values remained unchanged.
The real problem now is, instead of marrying four, we are not capable of
marrying one mainly because of the change in the system and higher demands
from all sides. The situation now is going to the other extreme, now we
need an author to write to us about "no-gamy" instead of polygamy!

Rashid AL-Yahyai

Dept. of Horticultural Scineces
Cornell University
123 Hedrick Hall
Geneva, NY 14456