Marriage, Money, and Divorce in Medieval Islamic Society By Yossef Rapoport (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 137 pages.)

Abstract

Through a very meticulous reading in numerous Arabic sources, Yossef
Rapoport, author of Marriage, Money, and Divorce in Medieval Islamic
Society, challenges the commonplace assumption that women in medieval
Arabic society were subordinated to male domination. Drawing from the
rich Arabic literature written during the Mamluk period (1250-1517), he not
only skillfully depicts marital life in Cairo, Damascus, and Jerusalem, but
also reveals novel facts that might undermine common stereotypes of
women in medieval Islamic society. For example, not only was there a high
rate (about 30 percent) of divorce in these three Mamluk urban societies, but
women were also single-handedly capable of providing for themselves and
their children. Elite women were economically independent, thanks to the
generous dowries they received upon marriage, while lower-class women
worked for their living, particularly in the textile industry. True, “repudiation”
(talaq) was a unilateral privilege reserved for the husband only; however,
there were many cases of consensual separation (khul`).
The women in this book do not appear as passive and submissive at all.
Quite the contrary, some put a price on various aspects of their relationships
with their husbands, including a “bed-fee” (haqq al-firashah), while others
appeared before the court to complain about their husbands’ misbehavior.
More often than not, the court sided with them by ordering the husbands to
be flogged or thrown into jail. All of these facts, carefully supported by
dozens of textual proofs and cautiously analyzed and contextualized, enable
the reader to catch a glimpse of the intimate lives of medieval Muslim families,
a glimpse that is free of prejudice and self-righteousness ...