Daily Times

She trusted him. There was no reason or so it appeared to her. In retrospect however, maybe there were plenty but she chose not to pay heed; after all, she trusted him. That was what marriage was all about, so she had been told.

On their second daughter’s first birthday, he introduced her to ‘that woman’ whom he had invited. She did not think anything of it; after all, she was an educated, open-minded and generous-hearted person, why would one of his colleagues coming to their daughter’s birthday bother her? As the evening passed, the festivities ended, everyone had left but that woman was still there. Odd, she thought to herself, considering it was a first meeting, but then shrugging her head, carried on with the post-party clean up. He called her. He was laughing, jabbering away, and he held a small jewellery box. As she went to him, he handed it to her; it was a gift from that woman for their daughter. Reluctantly, she opened it; inside was a gold ring. Shocked, she thanked that woman but declined to accept it, years of scrupulous upbringing coming into play. She was not prepared for his reaction. That woman and he both insisted that she kept the ring, as it was a gift. She kept on refusing but then sensing his enthusiasm and fearing reprisal if she persisted with her stance, she gave in with a heavy heart. The warning bells had started to chime somewhere in the recesses of her mind.

That is how it started. Then gifts started pouring in, for him, his greedy parents and sister. Then that woman was everywhere with her sob stories, how no one cared for her at home, how her mother had passed away and she had to care for her father, sob, sob, sob. When she was not at home, that woman started visiting; the phone calls started in the middle of the night and he disappeared without telling her. Her patience thinned, she confronted him. His story was that woman was ill so he took her to his doctor friend, then the father was ill so he went to the hospital to help them. She asked where that woman’s family — sister, two brothers were. Again, it was the same sob story.

Then she found out. That woman came when she had gone to visit her mother and had proceeded to their bedroom despite being told she was out and he was sleeping. That was the last straw. There was a huge fight. He said that woman was like his sister; that woman picked up the Quran and swore that he was her brother. The warning bells had been clamouring inside her head, but she had faith in God, so she left it in His Hands and never spoke of the issue.

A couple of years passed; they had their difficulties, mostly due to his family and the fact that she could not bear him a son, but life went on. He still disappeared, came home late, fought; she had accepted it as her destiny, but not a single day passed when she didn’t pray to God to keep her steadfast, to make it stop. Then one day he hit her. He beat her black and blue in front of the children; they watched, petrified, tears streaming down their faces, sobs choking their little chests, as he held their mother by her hair and hit her repeatedly, banging her head and body on their toy shelf. That day life changed forever.

This is not the story of some illiterate, poor couple from a far-flung remote area. This happens in urban Pakistan. To suffer abuse and violence, one does not have to be an uneducated woman who has no choice in life. The sad part is most women do not have the courage to walk away from it. Why? The answer is simple: if they have children, for their sake, for their parents’ sake, for fear of a judgemental society they live in, for the delusion that things will get better over time, simply, for there is no going back in most cases.

She said ‘no’ to physical violence, but even she did not have the courage to walk away. She kept on praying, for things to change, for him to change. She cried, and prostrated before God, beseeching to lift her burden for she could only bear so much. He divorced her. She was shattered. Then within two months of their divorce, he married that woman. A brother had married his sister. Her burden had been lifted. She was free at last.

There is a column in the nikahnama that pertains to whether any conditions have been imposed by the wife on the husband’s right to divorce her. Mostly, it is crossed out but in some cases, I have seen terms filled in; these can vary from a monetary penalty or fine to transfer of property or anything the parties mutually agree to. Unfortunately, the woman has to go to the civil court and not the family court for enforcement of all such terms, which though stipulated in the nikahnama have not been made subject to the jurisdiction of the family courts. It is high time the law was amended and obligations and rights arising out of the stipulations in the nikahnama were incorporated in the schedule of the Family Courts Act 1964.

Extra-marital affairs are hard to prove. Dragging partners into court over charges of adultery/zina is not only undesirable but also unleashes a frenzy of mudslinging that harms everyone, especially the children. The Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act provides dissolution of marriage on the ground that the husband ‘treats’ a wife with ‘cruelty’, which includes habitually assaulting her or making ‘her life miserable by cruelty of conduct even if such conduct does not amount to physical ill-treatment’ or ‘associates with women of evil repute and leads an infamous life’. What if the woman he ‘associates with’ is not of ‘evil repute’ as is the case mostly? I think originally it probably referred to prostitutes but maybe the time has come for an amendment. The sad part is most of what is ‘cruelty’ is not perceived to be so by the lower courts; unfortunately, the lower judiciary probably treats their mandate as just a job instead of a solemn duty to dispense justice. Cruelty of conduct is hard to prove in a court of law and in spite of broad guidelines having been laid down by the higher courts, all such attempts are akin to playing the flute in front of a buffalo.

Similarly, under Christian Divorce Law, adultery is a ground for divorce but again how does one prove adultery. Since the Christian divorce laws are tough, what most Pakistani Christians do is to pretend to convert to Islam to get rid of an unwanted spouse. I find it amazing that no representative of the Christians sitting in paliament has made an effort to change the obsolete laws governing their community.

Marriages should be based on trust ideally; couples might be incompatible to start with or they may grow in different directions later. It should be acceptable to realise this and part ways amicably, leaving both free to choose another spouse. But nothing can justify cheating, physical abuse or sordid affairs though it may be advisable to look the other way once in a while on a slight indiscretion if there is no abuse involved and there is sincere repentance and a commitment to make the relationship work. The same should hold true for either party.

As the Genesis states, the serpent was the reason Adam and Eve were banished from the heavens and with them was thus created the concept of ‘original sin’. There is a serpent that lies within all of us. It is up to us whether we let the serpent writhe in the curse that was inflicted on it, to lick dust and go on its belly, or we let it rear its head and become another name in a long line of the original sinners. And isn’t it time we crushed the serpent of cruelty with effective dispensation of justice?

The writer is an advocate of the high court