Voices of Islam (136 page)

SOCIAL LIFE

Marriage

Marriage holds great importance within the village community (
samaj
). Marriage provides a woman with a sense of prestige and identity and ensures her social standing in the
samaj.
Marriage is heterosexual, a union between a man and a woman. There is evidence of homosexuality among some unmar- ried males in the village, but such relationships are private and isolated in nature and cease when one of the partners gets married. Although according to Hanafi jurisprudence every adult Muslim woman has the right to choose her own marriage partner, in reality it is either her father or her elder brother who chooses the spouse. The same is also true in determining the
mohr,
the dower. The payment of dowries is widely practiced in the village, despite the fact that it has been declared illegal by Bangladesh law. It may also be noted that polygamy is not practiced in the village, probably because of the strict bureaucratic requirements necessary to carry out this custom.
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The bride and the groom never spend time with each other before marriage, for such practices are not appreciated by the
samaj.
The marriage market is male dominated, an observation that is consistent with previous findings.
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Male dominance over marriage is also reflected in the word
bi‘e,
the term used for

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Voices of Life: Family, Home, and Society

a marriage ceremony in the Bangla language.
Bi‘e
comes from the Arabic word
bay‘a,
which designates an oath or a pact of allegiance. In a marriage, the wife makes an oath of allegiance to the husband similar to the oath of allegiance made by a subject to a ruler. The average age difference between a husband and his wife is 10 years. Marriage is often seen as a way of expand- ing a relationship or a power base between two families or
gusthis
(patrilineal descent groups). Jean Ellickson,
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John P. Thorp,
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and Geoffrey D. Wood
22
observed similar trends in their research. As Jitka Kotalova
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and Santi Rozario
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have noted, the fact that marriage provides a woman with a social identity as a wife and later as a mother is a major reason why it is thought that a woman should marry at least once in her lifetime. Both Muslim and Hindu women in Purbadhala subdistrict are dependent on their fathers before marriage and on their husbands after marriage. This is a major factor in how a rural women’s identity in Bangladesh is subsumed into male-dominated lines of descent.

Divorce

The existing law of Bangladesh has made it difficult for a husband to marry a second wife. However, he still enjoys significant advantages in the case of divorce.
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A husband can divorce his wife at will with 90 days prior notice by making an application to the Chairman of the local Union Council. If the right to initiate a divorce is not delegated to the wife in the original marriage contract, she requires the court’s intervention to divorce her husband.
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By initiating a divorce, a wife risks her share in her husband’s property, her entitlement to recoup her dower, and the right to claim a main- tenance allowance after the divorce. During my research, I found that the majority of villagers were aware of a woman’s right to initiate a divorce in principle. However, they were not clear about how this right was to be applied. Some were confused about the difference between the provisions of the secular law and the Shari‘a. According to Shari‘a law, a husband can divorce his wife at will and he is not required to give notice to his wife through a mediating institution. In contrast, the right of a wife to divorce her husband is severely limited under the Shari‘a, and she is required to proceed through the judicial system upon initiating divorce.
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Not every- body is aware of such distinctions, and the nongovernment organizations operating in the village were not successful at making every woman aware of her legal rights in this regard.

In actual practice, the end of a marriage for a rural woman in Bangladesh results in the loss of emotional support, a loss of prestige, and economic ruin. This usually compels a woman to return to her parental home with shame and the prospect of becoming an economic burden on her family. During the period of my research in the village, I found no instance where a wife

Islam, Culture, and Women in a Bangladesh Village
43

initiated a divorce against her husband. However, there were several cases where husbands divorced their wives but refused to provide the required maintenance allowance after the divorce.

Inheritance

The inheritance rules of the village are based on the Shari‘a law of inherit- ance, where a daughter inherits half the amount of a son. A Muslim wife has a share in the property of her husband. When her husband dies, the widow inherits one-eighth of his property. If he dies childless, she inherits one-fourth. The rest of the property is passed on to the husband’s closest relatives. If no son is born to a couple, daughters alone cannot inherit all of the property of their parents. In such a case, part of the property goes to the sons of the father’s brother.
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During my time in the village, I did not fi any evidence of a woman claiming the portion of inheritance that was her right from her natal family. When asked about this departure from Shari‘a law, some respondents said that they did not claim their inheritance rights because of love. Others said that deferring their inheritance helped assure the support of their family in case of divorce or widowhood. This is consis- tent with the findings of other researchers.
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A wife must maintain some security against the possibility that she will be widowed or divorced. Should either of these misfortunes befall her, she has little recourse but to return to her childhood home. If she does not take the inheritance that is due to her under law, it is likely that her brothers will take her back with greater willing- ness and grace than would be the case if she had angered them by taking her

share of the inheritance.

Parda

Women of the village were very concerned about
parda
(also known as
purdah
). This concept literally means ‘‘hiding one’s face’’ but in practice, it refers to a set of rules and regulations that determines women’s interactions in society. ‘‘Observing
parda
is an integral part of a Muslim woman’s life,’’ argued many of my informants. Others observed, ‘‘Those who do not observe
parda
are
besharam
(shameless).’’ There are different ways of observ- ing
parda,
depending on the age and social status of women. Children and elderly women do not observe
parda
but women of marriageable age are sup- posed to observe the practice. However,
parda
does not have to be observed every time a woman leaves the home. For example, women who visit their next-door neighbors do not cover their faces with an additional garment. In general, women use an additional garment known as a
chadar
(similar to the Iranian
chador
) to cover the upper body and head while visiting neigh- borhoods within the village. When women visit a different village, such as

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Voices of Life: Family, Home, and Society

when they visit their natal family members from another village, they use the traditional
burqa,
a long single garment that covers the head, instead of the
chadar.
Whatever the type of garment,
parda
plays a major role in determin- ing the nature of women’s interactions with others in the community and between communities. However, gone are the days, observed one female informant, when a man could hardly ever see a woman from outside her com- munity. As an example of the virtues of the ‘‘golden days,’’ she mentioned the story of the marriage night of the great Sufi saint
Bara Pir
Hazrat Abdul Quadir Zilani,
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whose wife was supposed to be crippled and blind:

Bara Pir
married his wife without ever seeing her, as was the tradition in those golden days. On their very first night together,
Bara Pir Saheb
came out of his bedroom and found a beautiful woman in his bed. He went straight to his
shashur
(father-in-law) and asked him whether there was any mistake. His
shashur
smiled and told
Bara Pir,
‘‘I described my daughter as crippled because she has never gone out of her home; she does not know how to go out. I described her as blind because she has not seen any male except me in her life. Go to her my child, that beautiful girl in your bedroom is very much your wife. Nobody made a mistake.’’

Some informants argued that to become
pardanashin,
observant of
parda,
is a matter of prestige for a Muslim woman because it marks a difference from the followers of other religions.
Parda
and the seclusion it entails play a major role in determining the cultural construction of work and the sexual division of labor in the rural communities of Bangladesh.
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It is also a power- ful means of social control in these communities.
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Purity and Pollution

The villagers also exhibited a strong sense of purity and pollution. This is particularly important with regard to the virginity of unmarried women, which, it is believed, helps sustain the honor of the
paribar
(family). Researchers have observed that keeping the bodies of nubile females intact is an asset for the family and is a form of symbolic capital that ensures honor and acceptance for a woman in the community. Purity also refers to a woman’s self-control and virtue. The virginity of an unmarried woman proves that she is both restrained and virtuous. Rape pollutes a woman’s body and renders her unmarriageable. Pollution also occurs because of sexual misconduct. Since both rape and sexual misconduct make a woman unfit for marriage, there is a tendency to ‘‘blame the victim’’ in cases of rape, which may lead to personal and family tragedies in extreme cases.

Pollution has another dimension as well, which is a product of women’s biology, in that it is linked to women’s menstrual periods. Women are perceived as impure during their menstrual periods, which marginalizes them religiously as well as socially. Although most schools of Shari‘a law regard the

Islam, Culture, and Women in a Bangladesh Village
45

blood of menstruation as no worse than that caused by a cut, it is seen differently in Bangladesh culture. The fact that a woman cannot pray or enter a mosque during menstruation means that women are impure by nature. Several of my informants argued that the punishment for eating
gandom,
the prohibited fruit tasted by Eve in the Garden of Eden, was her menstrua- tion. Because of attitudes such as these, David Abecassis has concluded, ‘‘[Muslim women in Bangladesh] are cut off from the mainstream of society and from the most important processes of power and decision making, not just by
parda
but by the attitudes which lie behind it; they are cut off from God and from other men and women by pollution-related ideas and by religious practice.’’
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The Shalish

Disputes that cannot be settled within the family are brought before the
shalish
or
bichar,
a council led by village elders who are popularly known as
matbars.
While studying the concept of power in a rural district of Bangladesh, Thorp (1978) found that each residential brotherhood has a leader who is a major landowner as well as having the skill and knowledge in settling disputes in a
shalish
or a
bichar.
A chosen leader of the community may order this person to punish an offender from within the family group, or isolate a person or a family from the
samaj
as a punishment.
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The
shalish
was created as an instrument to maintain social control and to concentrate power in the hands of influential villagers. Leadership in the
shalish
mostly depends on the possession of landed property, personal reputation, and connections with influential public officials.

The
shalish
imposes its will through threats to honor and the inducement of shame. Sometimes, it also dispenses judgments that result in divorce or corporal punishments. A meeting of the s
halish
can be convened by any male disputant, a village elder, or a religious leader. If a
shalish
is convened for set- tling a dispute related to inheritance, divorce, the observance of
parda,
or adultery, a religious leader presides over the session. This religious leader is usually the local
Imam,
who leads the congregational Friday prayers in the mosque. Sometimes, the
shalish
is headed by a
mufti
(Islamic jurist), who participates to judge the issue in dispute from the point of view of Islamic law. If the
shalish
is headed by such a person, he may pronounce a decree (
fatwa
) that might entail the beating, lashing, or even stoning to death of the alleged offender. Village women cannot sit as members of the
shalish.
When they appear as the accused or as victims, they usually defend themselves through their male relatives.
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Ironically, a
fatwa
does not have any legal recognition in Bangladesh. In January 2001, the High Court Division of the Bangladesh Supreme Court declared
fatwas
illegal. In this judgment, Justice Golam Rabbani and Justice Najmun Ara Sultana, the first female high

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Voices of Life: Family, Home, and Society

court judge in Bangladesh, observed that the legal system of Bangladesh empowers only the state courts to decide all questions relating to legal opinions, thus making a
fatwa
illegal. Although the government of Bangladesh challenged the ruling, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court upheld the decision of the High Court. The case is still pending with the Appellate Division.
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