QATIF: Muhammad Al-Jirani, judge of Qatif Endowments and Inheritance Court, confirmed to a local newspaper that 5 percent of marriage cases in recent years involved the condition to mandate the wife the powers to divorce herself from the husband, a condition different of that called “Osmma,” or the holder of the power to divorce the other spouse in the bond of marriage.
The judge explained this doctrinal opinion is not known by many but started to spread under the name “mandating,” pointing out that the court endorsed and signed all the contracts containing this stipulation.
He urge all females who are about to marry to document this provision of mandating to be able to divorce themselves from the bond of marriage if they were abused or abandoned, or in the other cases when Saudi females are married to foreigners who go back to their home countries shortly after the marriage.
“Such documentation of the mandating provision ensures their rights and dignity to say the least,” he added.
He described the marriages of divorced women as “partial phenomenon,” pointing to the spread of marriage of divorced women whether still virgins or not.
“Divorced women tend to preserve their second marriage much better than the previous failed one,” he explained, noting that many divorced couples succeed to work it out between them and get re-married through a new marriage contract.
Al-Jirani said that between 20 to 30 percent of divorce cases are the result of the “lawful eyesight of the prospective wife, where in most cases the photo in reality is very different, now that the Photoshop application is widely used.
“I often demand that the two prospective marriage partners must see each other with the frame of the legal provision in Islam, the lawful eyesight of the prospective spouse before signing the marriage contract. This is very important but it is up to the Ministry of Justice to make it mandatory,” he said.
He estimated the number of divorce cases because of the emotional neglect of the husband or his negligence to his wife, either because he is very busy or addicted to social media, to reach 50 percent of the total number of divorces, and 20 percent because of the multiple marriages of the husband, either in secret or with the wife's knowledge. The other marital conditions, such as sexual coldness or incompetency account for 10 percent of the total number of divorce cases.
“Marriage in Qatif is prevalent because of the easiness of the whole process. The annual number of marriages in the region ranges between five thousand to six thousand.”
5% of marriage contracts in Qatif allow the woman right to divorce
