War Taking Toll on Marriage, Too

Iraqi Officials Say Divorces Have Doubled Since 2003 Invasion

BAGHDAD -- Ten years in the making, the marriage of Raad and Nidhal Khalil was undone in less than 10 minutes of courtroom formalities. Furious when he took a second wife four months ago, she moved out and refused to return until he granted a divorce.

"The social worker's report shows no possibility of reconciling," Family Court Judge Salim al-Moussawi said sternly, his disappointment palpable as he rifled through the thin case file. She shook her head. Raad stared at the floor.

"Are you pure today?" the judge asked Nidhal, who nodded her assent to the standard question about whether she was not menstruating. Shiite Muslim women cannot participate in court proceedings during their periods.

As he dismissed the former couple, both in their forties, Moussawi reminded Nidhal that she was forbidden to remarry for three months. She didn't seem to mind.

For a growing number of Iraqi couples like the Khalils, including the dozen or so others waiting in the cramped and steamy hallway of the Kadhimiyah courthouse one recent afternoon, marital bonds are proving ever more fragile. At least 301,446 divorces were registered in Iraq during the past two years -- nearly half the number of marriages recorded during that time -- according to statistics compiled by the Justice Ministry.

More than twice as many marriages are ending in divorce as before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, according to ministry and court officials, social workers and divorce lawyers, though no reliable data are available from the earlier period. The twin stresses of perpetual violence and a stagnant economy -- along with the loosening of certain social stigmas -- are taking a toll on one of Islamic culture's most sacred institutions.

"It is an explosion of failed marriages. It has never been like this," said Moussawi, who has sat on the bench for 40 years and said he now spends nearly as much time ending marriages as he does formalizing them. He called divorce "the most despicable hallal," meaning the worst thing permissible under Islam.

Marriages are governed by Iraq's 1959 personal status law. Long considered among the most progressive in the Middle East, it does not adhere solely to Islamic law, which favors men in nearly all matters. But a recent visit to the Kadhimiyah court showed that religious influence remains pervasive.

Rules governing divorce vary by sect. While Shiite women were asked about their "purity" and required to bring two witnesses, Sunni Muslims needed no witnesses and were spared the intimate questions.

Moussawi and other court officials spent much of their time trying to keep couples together. One woman appearing before him sputtered with indignation about the mother-in-law who shares her tiny marital flat.

"No one can endure this," she told Moussawi. "I want some kind of independence and to not be under the thumb of my husband's family's oppression."

But Moussawi urged the husband to try to win her back. He made his pitch.