Between heritage and modernization

THE situation of Egyptian women has attracted the attention of both con­servative and progressive elements in Egyptian society since the beginning of its modern history, and the area of family law was from early on a contested site and a target for attention, criticism and calls for reform.

Despite long-standing criticism of existing personal status law in Egypt, many of the specific aspirations of such early reformists have yet to be realized. One of the main obstacles to such reform is found in a general concept of male superi­ority over females, frequently traced by defenders of this principle to the concept of qiwama in the Qur'an (Surat al-Nisa, 34). The term can be understood (and translated) in various ways (guardianship/protection/control etc.) in the context of the verse. Stowasser (1998: 32-3) gives the following English translation of Sura 4: 34 as ‘the pivotal Qur'anic verse on gender relations’:

Men are in charge of [are guardians of/are superior to/have authority over] women (al-rijalu qawwamuna 'ala l-nisa') because God has endowed one with more [because God has preferred some of them over others] (bi-òà Jaddala Allahu ba'dahum 'ala ba'din) and because they spend of their means (zm-∕>ι-mα 'anfaqu mm amwalihm}.

This verse is also considered in the context of other verses in the Qur'an understood as underlining the equality of males and females. Down the centuries, jurists have given it much attention, including a view that God has given men a general guardianship or leadership role over women.¹¹

While this is not the place to review the various interpretations of the verse or the concept of qiwama, it is worth noting that Egyptian scholars have sought to understand the concept in the context of contemporary Egyptian society. During the 1960s, Shaykh Mohammed Shaltut argued that what was meant was men’s responsibility towards women, rather than their leadership over them (Shaltut n.d.: 159-268). More recently, Nasr Abu Zeid has argued that the verse is not so much a legal prescription, but rather a description of the status of women before Islam, the idea of the ‘preference’ of men over women not so much an absolute rule as a situation that needs to be changed in order to achieve the original equality of women. Abu Zeid refers to another verse (Surat al- Baqarah, 228) (‘and women shall have rights similar to the rights against them according to what is equitable’) to argue that women’s rights and responsibilities are defined according to the customs and traditions of a given society, not that customs and traditions themselves become absolute and abiding rules (Abu Zeid 1999: 214). Similarly, his understanding of qiwama is the idea of responsibility, rather than power and leadership, and he poses to those who link qiwama with men’s financial maintenance of women the question whether in cases where a woman is the breadwinner for the family, and the man is unemployed, the man would grant the woman all the rights of qiwama understood as accruing to men in that situation (ibid., p. 215).

This might be seen to be a fair question in the light of the social and eco­nomic changes that have taken place in Egyptian society. With increasing male unemployment rates as a result of structural adjustment policies, and labour migration by a large number of Egyptian men to other Arab states, the Egyptian workforce has been described as having been ‘feminized’. A 1993 study showed that 15 to 20 per cent of families depend solely on women’s income (Badran 1994). The Egyptian government reported in 2000 that ‘the proportion of women supporting families has grown to 22%’.¹²

Nevertheless, the more traditional understanding of qiwama as male ‘superiority’ supports the inferior position of Arab and Egyptian women at all levels. The concept reflects a social repression expressed through male-female discrimination in the family and in society, in opportunities for work, promotion, salary, education, choice in marriage, social and political participation, and decision-making in the family.