Cairo: The part-time marriage has sparked a heated debate in Egypt in recent days after Egyptian lawyer proposed it as a way to solve the problem of millions of divorced and unmarried women in Egypt and the Arab world.
Ahmed Mahran, the manager of the Cairo center for legal and political studies says his idea suggested that the husband marry a second wife, but instead of living with her he would visit her for a few hours a week, considering this a “solution” to the “plight” of millions of divorced women.
“A mutual husband or a husband for some time or a borrowed husband, even for one day per week, is better than the moral deviation the society has reached,” Mahran has said.
To eliminate divorce and combat the spread of divorce, Mahram proposed three-pronged initiative: part-time marriage, a borrowed husband, marry to her and her divorced friend.
Egyptians have reacted strongly on social media to the idea of part-time marriages.
One of the social media users said they thought if part-time marriage was legalized, the woman would be a cheap and humiliating commodity, and every day she would marry part-time, and men would take advantage of this loophole. The user called on Al Azhar, the top religious authority in Egypt, to give a definitive opinion on the legitimacy of this marriage.
Women on social media rejected Mahran’s proposals to reduce it to cheap and degrading goods, saying that if they want to get married, they will look for a man who wants to spend time with them and their family.
Mahran insists that his proposal has the approval of religious leaders. “When I approached a number of religious leaders to get their opinion, they did not refuse, but stipulated acceptance and approval.”
Many considered it is forbidden by Sharia and said it she should be buried.
Mahran’s proposal comes a few months after the Egyptian government first began debating amendments to the personal status act, which were rejected by some 300 organizations based on the continued existence of a culture of discrimination on ground of gender.
Among the proposals, the bill states that any man in a woman’s family would have the right to destroy her marriage within one year if she married without his consent.