Suad expected her marriage to be her deliverance, but things did not go her way. She soon started suffering at the hands of Selim who would beat her, humiliate her and abuse her. Four years after their marriage, Selim threatened to take a second wife as she «wouldn’t bear him a boy».
Marrying off underage girls is not only acceptable in our society, but also encouraged and blessed by the parents, religion and society. This practice is regulated by a constitutional and legal structure known as the Article 9 of the Lebanese Constitution, which calls for the State’s respect for the personal status system «of both parents whatever their religious affiliation». Legally, this means that decisions on marriage and divorce and everything in between are done through and by clerics. The latter decide the minimum age for marriage, and in many cases rely on their own assessment of the girl’s maturity and her eligibility for marriage.
Among Christian and Muslim communities, only the Orthodox communities have set the marriageable age at 18 for men and women, albeit in some cases they may reduce that age to 17 for boys and 15 for girls. In theory, The Shiite community considers the minimum age for marriage 15 for young men and 9 for girls, although the main condition is that girls reach puberty even if this happens when they are only 8 years old!
The Lebanese have been living in this situation since the 1930s. In the 1950s, the regulation of this issue began with laws governing personal status matters of the various religious groups. Remarkably, «early marriage» has unexpectedly and only recently become an «issue». The problem has naturally been pinned on others, such as Syrian refugees who, according to public opinion in Lebanon, have become the problem. They marry off their daughters, motivated by their desire to «protect» them or to take the financial burden off their shoulders, given that they find themselves in irregular displacement conditions. And adding insult to injury, they do it without a zaffa (a traditional wedding procession)!
When Suad tried to have recourse to the court to get justice, she discovered that this course of action was not that simple. The divorce decision and implementation lie exclusively with the husband. She did not find comfort in her parents either. «This family has no divorcee daughters,» came her father’s response after she told him about her wish to separate from Selim.
Marriage in Lebanon is subject to several religious authorities, where the majority of marriages are officiated with religious or spiritual legitimacy through their respective courts. They regulate all matters relating to marriage, including inheritance, custody, divorce, alimony, custodianship, guardianship, among others. However, given that religious authorities diverge in their views of these matters, women, depending on their sects, are subject to various provisions that differ from one sect to another, leaving women in Lebanon vulnerable to various forms of discrimination. This is perhaps most evident in matters relating to custody, domestic violence, forced marriage and minimum marriageable age, among other inequalities in social rights.
When did Suad’s and Selim’s problem start? What left them both in two parallel worlds with different expectations and hopes for the marital institution? In the search for the roots of this problem, we find that it goes back to childhood. Children in Lebanon, as in many other countries, grow up on a path of gender and social ideologicalization, manifested in games, role divisions, and conscious or unconscious forms of identification with those around them in the vital family or social spheres about what society expects of girls and boys in preparation for their «supreme» roles, as determined by society within the context of the marital institution. Thus, girls are systematically exposed to the role of the mother-wife by the toy, movie and cinema industries and the social environment through dolls, Barbies, kitchen utensils and ironing tools, which all relate to the private sphere. As for boys, their toys and games are predominantly challenging, focusing on physical strength, violence, winning, etc., and are carried out in the public sphere, gradually preparing them to become «men» and husbands as expected of them.
The two sides therefore grow up with different views of the social roles they will have to play, as if they come from two separate worlds. Without a doubt, their visions of their expected roles in marital life have no grounds in reality. In the case of girls and young women, the view is often fanciful and dreamy, and far from reality, as they often dream of a «knight on a white horse». Young boys, on the other hand, have a sense of entitlement and expect their partners to maintain the household and remain within the boundaries of the men’s personal space.
Regarding divorce and marital problems, according to An-Nahar daily, the figures and data from religious and spiritual courts in Lebanon indicate that in 2014, Christian and Islamic courts registered 41,717 marriage contracts, while divorce contracts reached 7,180 for all the religious communities in Lebanon in the same year, indicating that the divorce rate was 17% in 2014.(1)
In defining the dynamics of the marital relationship between the two partners, psychology indicates that one plus one is equal to three, in reference to the fact that the dynamics of the marital relationship are determined by the two sides of the relationship and by the sum of attitudes, concepts and expectations borne by them, which determines to a large extent the course, form and status of this dynamic relationship.
Those looking for reasons for divorce or termination of marriage between spouses often come across many opinions by psychologists or clerics about «marital duties and rights» or «virtual relationships» brought by the technological wave. Divorce, however, is not rooted in these trivial reasons. The main reason lies in the fact that marriage is founded on an unequal dynamic relationship between the two sides, which makes it impossible to sustain. When it does live on, it is mainly due to considerations relating to children. This is one of the root causes of divorce, as women are not seen, either religiously or culturally, as citizens with independent decision-making and independent will in the marital institution. Thus, with the increasing rates of separation between spouses, we find that the economic empowerment of women, the shift in their self-awareness and their growing choices have become essential factors in pushing them towards separation. It should be noted that this category of relations may not necessarily belong to any of the religions, whether the marriage contract is civil or religious, separation between spouses is not necessarily classified as a divorce, but as a termination of the marriage contract in which women’s decision is fundamental and pivotal.
In the context of the search for ratios and statistics on divorce in Lebanon, we find a report that places part of the responsibility for those high rates on Syrian women refugees. Perhaps the Arabic sayings «my leader can do no wrong» or «it’s probably the Italians who did it» apply to Syrians in the case of Lebanon?
Regarding this crisis facing the «marital institution» today, the question remains: How can program and policy-makers deal with the disintegration of values and principles governing choice, decision and mechanisms of managing marital relationships to ensure the building of healthy, non-violent societies that spread the concepts of peace?
(1) An article published in An-Nahar by Jean Sadaka, 2015