General
§ AS NOTED in the Introduction, through a focus on the social aspects of personal status law, this study sought to answer three basic questions: what sources of discrimination against women are still to be found in the law; whether it is sufficient to protect women’s rights legislatively in order for them to be exercised in practice; and through what means women can be empowered to exercise their rights guaranteed under existing law.
Although this study has concentrated on personal status law, other areas of Egyptian law continue to discriminate between men and women in violation of international conventions on women’s rights — provisions in the penal law concerning adultery, for example, and in the law of nationality on children born to Egyptian women married to non-Egyptians. As for the area of personal status, various aspects of Egyptian law appear to conflict with international human rights instruments. By way of example, Article 16(ι)(a) and (b) of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women provides for equality" in the marriage contract in the freedom to choose the spouse. This right is guaranteed in theory in Egyptian law and the principles of the Islamic shari'a, with the wife’s consent or a valid appointment of her father to act in her place being required for a valid marriage contract. In reality, however, this is often not the case as a result of social and economic considerations, including poverty, lack of education, and conservative customs and traditions that lead to girls being married off by their fathers without their consent, particularly to very wealthy, elderly and non-Egyptian husbands. Social traditions, moreover, view early marriage as a sort of guarantee and protection for young daughters, rather than education or work (Zulfikar 1995: 134). These articles of the Convention also raise the issue of polygyny, as a departure from the principle of equality in marriage.
Egyptian personal status law addresses the issue only by requiring the husband to notify his existing and intended wives of his intention to marry polygynously. In the Islamic shari'a, polygyny is permitted only in exceptional cases, but in Egyptian law and practice there are no constraints on or scrutiny over the use of this theoretically restricted permission, with the result that in many cases it is exercised arbitrarily, with no reasonable justification, and with potentially very damaging effects on the feelings of self-worth and self-respect of the affected wife as well as on the interests of children.As for other matters, the law gives the husband the right to stop paying his wife’s maintenance if she withdraws obedience and leaves the matrimonial home Withoutjustification. In such circumstances he may call on her to return, through a registered letter identifying the dwelling known as the ‘house of obedience'. The wife has the right to appeal against this for a period of thirty days, otherwise she loses her right to maintenance. The ‘house of obedience’ is in most cases the matrimonial home; it is supposed to be an appropriate and healthy residence for a family, appropriately and adequately equipped and furnished, and independent in the sense of not being shared with another family. The courts used to require that if rented, the dwelling be an unfurnished let, since furnished rents are usually temporary and less stable than an unfurnished let. However, in recent rulings, courts have started accepting furnished lets and also dwellings shared with other families, and have frequently compromised on the need for the ‘house of obedience’ to be adequately and appropriately equipped and furnished, requiring instead only the minimum necessities.
On the other hand, the study has identified obstacles posed by the judicial system (that is, before the promulgation of the new law, the effect of the latter not being clear at the time of writing) to the realization by women of social and legal rights.
These included the lack of a court specializing in family affairs, and the dispersal of different claims relating to one issue between different courts, the lack of limits on time or deferrals, difficulties in establishing claims in regard to maintenance and talaq, an imbalance in the allocation of cases between the courts, a low number of cases reaching final settlement, and, even in those that do, discrepancies in the rulings issued by judges in different jurisdictions in similar cases. Delays in the system and mounting fees and associated expenses were factors that might oblige a woman to waive her rights rather than pursue her case through the courts.Regarding the second question, it is clear from the study that legal reform alone does not suffice to guarantee women’s rights, but rather, awareness of the law has to be raised. Many women, especially those from the poorest economic classes, are not aware of what rights the law does protect and have no possibility of putting its positive aspects to use. History and reality teach us of social groups dominated by a false ideological consciousness that comes out in defence of interests contradicting their own real interests; the study can be seen to confirm this in particular regard to the regulation of male-female relationships in the most critical and dangerous sphere of social interaction, i.e. that of the family, and in our focus on personal status law. By focusing not so much on legal analysis as on sociological and anthropological aspects of the conduct of different social actors in regard to this issue, and particularly in regard to awareness of the law, this study has sought to fill a gap in knowledge of this area and by so doing to offer practical tools for the reform process.