The number of divorces in Egypt is on the rise according to a Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) study reported in the Egyptian opposition daily Al Wafd. While there were 67,000 divorce cases filed in 1990, by 1997 that number had jumped to 71,000. Last year the number climbed even higher to 90,000.
The study also revealed that the number of marriages had similarly increased with 405,000 contracts registered in 1990 and 562,000 in 1997.
The study however, was not detailed enough to determine the statistical significance of the numbers. The population of Egypt, for example, has also grown during that period.
Many divorcees and experts interviewed argued that changing attitudes in Egypt were responsible for the increase in divorces.
"It’s not a legal issue, [the increase in] divorce has social roots," said Abdel Fatah Lashin, a lawyer in Alexandria. "The law has not changed at all."
Despite the strong social stigma that is still associated with divorce in Egypt, a fact which led women interviewed to request that their real names not be used, many feel that women’s increased awareness of their rights is leading them to opt out of unhappy marriages.
"We refuse things our grandmothers accepted," said Rania, a divorced educator from Alexandria. "Society is more elastic now than in the past, there is more flexibility."
The higher level of education attained by women is another reason that many attribute to women claiming their rights to divorce these days.
"The women who you see claiming their right to divorce are usually young and college educated," said Lashin. "You won’t find, for example, a rising number of divorces in the countryside."
Increases in education levels are often accompanied by rises in income, giving women more autonomy.
"Women used to not ask for divorce. They’d put up with anything and everything because they weren’t able to support themselves financially. Now a lot more women are working and so they have an income of their own and they can support themselves, or they have a wealthy family that can support them. So they’re not prepared to put up with as much as the older generation," said Ghada, a divorced mother of a grown child in Cairo.
Rania agreed, "We’ve got the nerve not to ask, but to demand. Society is accepting it. We have our own means of financial support."
Many attribute an increase in divorce to the fact that while the economic and educational status of women is changing, the attitude of men has often remained largely the same.
"We women are blamed for divorce more than men because of this Eastern society," said Ghada.
Dr. Soha Abdel Qader, a noted sociologist and columnist for the Middle East Times, doubted the reliability of the CAPMAS statistics and disagreed that it was more socially acceptable for women to divorce now.
"My impression is different. I think twenty years ago women were a lot more liberal than they are today. With the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism a lot of women are going back to the basics of Islam and considering that the husband is the bread earner and head of the family. I’d be very surprised if more women were seeking divorce."
Whether or not divorce is more frequent, it is widely recognized that divorce is much more difficult for women than for men, both socially and legally.
"A man can just say I divorce thee, three times," says Ghada.
For the woman, however, the process is much more complicated. While Muslim men can divorce by simply stating such, in front of witnesses, women must go to court and plead their cases in front of judges.
Whereas a man is under no obligation to provide reasons for his desire to divorce, a woman must. These reasons include impotence, abandonment, lack of financial support, unbearable living relations, or if the man is a drunkard. Women must bring proof of these charges to the judge.
"And most of the judges are chauvinist pigs," said Abdel Qader.
Furthermore, these court cases often drag on for years.
"It leaves a woman [suspended] between marriage and divorce," said Osama Shakr, a lawyer with the Center for Human Rights and Legal Aid (CHRLA).
Shakr added that a new law is in the works to shorten the length of a court case.
In order to avoid the drawn out legal battles, women often give up everything to oblige their husbands to acquiesce to divorce.
In Islam marriages have contractual obligations that men must give women a lump sum in case of divorce called muakhr. Also, in the case of divorce women are supposed to get the furniture and, if the couple has young children, the house.
Women will often forgo these rights, however.
"Islam has given us [women] many rights, but men misuse it," said Rania. "Women will give up anything just to get him to divorce her."
