Saga of the Forcefully Divorced Couple
Rania Salamah, Okaz

I anxiously watched with a mixture of sadness, happiness, pride, shame, disgust, tension and relief an interview with Mansoor that appeared recently on the Al-Ekhbariah channel. Mansoor is the husband who had his happy marriage cut short when he was forcefully divorced from his wife by a judge in Al-Jouf on the grounds of it supposedly violating social customs and practices. I found the case difficult to follow with all its contradictions.

Mansoor told the story of how his brothers-in-law — who incidentally are his wife’s half-brothers — decided to dissolve his marriage because of supposedly tribal incompatibilities. Forcing a couple to divorce on tribal and social grounds is despicable and shameless.

I believe there are two contradictory aspects to the story. One that makes you feel disgusted at the wife’s brothers, while the other makes you admire the couple for their courage in choosing to confront this injustice.

The outrage in Saudi society and media over a judge’s decision to force a divorce unwanted by either spouse continues. This piece, from the Arabic daily Okaz notes, among other things, that Saudi society bewails the high number of divorces while still permitting this action to proceed. It’s another example of why the Saudi judicial system is in need of serious reform.