Posted on 01/22/2007 6:18:03 PM PST by gobucks
BAGHDAD - Fatima Ali was a 24-year-old divorcee with no high school diploma and no job. Shawket al-Rubae was a 34-year-old Shiite sheik with a pregnant wife who, he said, could not have sex with him.
Ali wanted someone to take care of her. Rubae wanted a companion.
They met one afternoon in May at the house he shares with his wife, in the room where he accepts visitors seeking his religious counsel. He had a proposal. Would Ali be his temporary wife? He would pay her 5,000 Iraqi dinars upfront — about $4 — in addition to her monthly expenses. About twice a week over the next eight months, he would summon her to a house he would rent.
The negotiations took an hour and ended with an unwritten agreement, the couple recalled. Thus began their "mutaa," or enjoyment marriage, a temporary union believed by Shiite Muslims to be sanctioned by Islamic law.
The Shiite practice began 1,400 years ago, in what is now Iraq and other parts of the region, as a way to provide for war widows. Banned by President Saddam Hussein's Sunni-led government, it has regained popularity since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq brought the majority Shiites to power, said clerics, women's rights activists and mutaa spouses.
Opponents of mutaa, most of them Sunni Arabs, say it is less about religious freedom and more about economic exploitation. Thousands of men are dying in the sectarian violence that has followed the invasion, leaving behind widows who must fend for themselves. Many young men are out of work and prefer temporary over permanent wives who require long-term financial commitments. In a mutaa arrangement, the woman is entitled to payment only for the duration of the marriage.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Uhmmm.......interesting......
They use to call them cowboy weddings.
Till dawn do us part.
Heh.
Actually, this was one of the things that pushed Bin Ladin to his extremism. His dad believed in rent-a-wives. Osama was among 51 kids or so. No one knew how many "wives" senior Bin Ladin had as he had the habit of "marrying" someone in the morning and divorcing her that night.
Of course, he could afford several wives and lots of kids and they were often well cared for but Senior also had a habit of marrying off his ex-wives to workers of his, sometimes high-level execs, sometimes the former limo driver. Osama and his mama were foisted off on a senior executive but most of the kids weren't treated so well. Although Osama believed in polygamy, he never initiated a divorce, apparently.
All this is according to the book, The Looming Towers. What might have been if Bin Ladin Senior had honored the marriage covenant?
"I have a single co-worker that spends a lot of time in Brazil. He told me that he doesn't pay women for sex...he pays them to leave after sex."
I'll bet there are a lot of mirrors in his house.
Cast in that light, doesn't sound like a bad arrangement.
The ease of divorce in Islam is actually the corrupt and corrupting thing here. A mutaa is at least honest to the woman: she knows it's not going to last.
It is a Shi'ite institution, and, despite the lunatics currently running Iran, Shia has usually been the more civil and civilized branch of the false creed. Doubtless some imam or mullah way back when noted that women were getting screwed in the metaphorical sense (the literal sense being obvious) by men who married them with the intent of divorcing them after a short time, and decided to make the whole thing more honest.
"What might have been if Bin Ladin Senior had honored the marriage covenant?"
Ahhh....sweet music, so rarely heard.
We've brought back this sort of traditional Iraqi activity and we've also helped all the Christians in Iraq find new homelands in other places.
I'm so glad we liberated Iraq.
Another doggone fatherless household, basically. Just like south central LA. Makes sense to me.
This is news??? Haven't Britney Spears and Madonna been doing this for years?
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