Silent Agreement

“Silence means granting permission if it [said silence] is considered consent according to ‘urf” (Sonbol 48). Amira El-Azhary Sonbol discusses the implications of remaining silent, even in marriage contracts. Without voicing their opinions and objections, Middle Eastern women are bound by contracts to uphold marriages and other decisions that may not be favorable, not to mention harmful. However, in some cases if women raise their voices or talk back to a court official or family member, the consequences are far worse than agreeing through silence.

In Divorce Iranian Style, the court often asked why the woman wanted to be divorced and why she had not given her husband another chance. Questions addressing mediocre relationships, even abusive relationships, encourage women to give their husbands another chance in the name of family honor. What about the woman’s happiness and well-being? Although the number of prerequisites for women to file divorce in court has declined, and the option of a “no fault” divorce has surfaced through reforms, it is still difficult for a woman to succeed in court: “Most divorce cases initiated by women have languished in the courts, take as long as eight to ten years to resolve” (Singerman 165). Men, on the other hand, “have a unilateral right to divorce that they can exercise without being obliged to enter into a court preceding” (165).

Family law and personal status laws have evolved other the years, but there is still a long way to go. When a woman has to choose between a marriage, including the right to her dower and abuse, and a divorce, including shame, potentially losing custody of her children, and a lack of financial security how does she decide what to do? In the film, a woman was struggling to keep custody of her children because she had lost the right to them when she remarried. Regardless of the reason for divorce, the laws keep the woman from her children.

In the family court in Iran, divorce is so much of a he-said-she-said game it’s hard to determine truth. Then when the courts call for arbitration with family members, the woman is often left to fend for herself in a room full of male family members, determining her monetary worth and if she could possibly get the dower, which she gave up rights to by continuing with the divorce. Even if it’s not the woman’s “fault” for the divorce, she is left paying a price for a decision to marry a man she probably did not choose.

There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud

was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

- Anais Nin