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or maltreats her[1] or excludes her entirely from his bed[2] and other similar conditions[3]. To the series of conditions "on which the talāq is suspended" the two following[4] are always attached: "if the woman is not a consenting party thereto and places the matter in the hands of the constituted authorities." The omission of these two conditions would lead to the greatest difficulties. The Mohammedan law will not allow the word talāq to be made light of; when the talāq has been once pronounced or a condition on which it "hangs" fulfilled, the marriage is dissolved ipso facto without any judicial decree and all further cohabitation of the pair is from that moment regarded as adultery. The talāq must be proved by two witnesses, if one of the parties concerned denies its having been pronounced; but it has full force with all its consequences for both parties as soon as ever it has been uttered by the husband.
Suppose the husband then to have created a taʾlīq of the kind we refer to and to have done one of the acts therein enumerated, the marriage would be then and there dissolved, irrespective of the wishes of the woman, who would perhaps be glad enough to leave things as they were. Extraordinary complications would arise if the man's act were to be decisive and the woman to have no voice in the matter. There would be a complete want of control, and amid the prevailing ignorance of the great mass of the people, many a married couple might form an entirely wrong opinion as to whether a given "condition" had been fulfilled or not. The addition of the two final conditions just mentioned gets rid of all these difficulties, since they make the completion of the divorce dependent on the consent of the woman and a
- ↑ The nature of the assault is sometimes defined, as for instance striking her so as to draw blood, or pulling out her hair, or smashing to pieces her loom, the silent witness of many a forbidden intrigue.
- ↑ Although the marriage can be dissolved by the judge (faskh) at the instance of the woman in case of impotence on the man's part, Van den Berg is wrong in concluding that the man is bound to give "marital rights" (see his essay quoted above, p. 482). All Mohammedan law-books teach the opposite; it is only the woman who is bound to surrender her person. Divorce owing to impotence only takes place because the object to be attained by marriage (that is, according to the law-books, sexual union) is thereby rendered impossible, so that there is no longer any reason why the marriage should continue.
- ↑ In some districts we find conditions whose object is simply religious, e. g. "If I neglect the obligatory prayers or fasts or drink arak or gamble" etc. etc.
- ↑ Absurd as it may appear, neither of these are mentioned by Van den Berg.
