Gender, family law and citizenship in Syria

This article is part of the University of Bergen's Global Moments in the Levant project, http://www.globalmoments.uib.no

Abstract

This paper explores the impact of family law on the structuring of gendered citizenship in Syria where the state's family law accords male and female citizens different legal status, thus ordering the distribution of basic rights and duties along gendered lines. Partial centralization and fragmented secularization of judicial authority relates to the accommodation of religious groups, a policy which was continued after the establishment of territorial states in the 1920s. Family law maintained its religious tenets and was included as part of the state's jurisdiction. The impact of family law on citizenship is exacerbated in that membership in religious groups is mandated and monitored by the state. Citizenship is thus mediated through a citizen's membership in a religious group where the religiously based family law applies as state law. Seen in theoretical terms, family law plays a crucial role in structuring gendered citizenship in ways that limit the legal authority of female citizens as full members of the polity. Two questions are addressed: First, how and why does family law premise gendered citizenship in Syria? Second, what characterizes the debates regarding changes within family law that surfaced after 2003 following the political regime's liberalization efforts?

Keywords:

• gender
• citizenship
• Syria
• family law

Notes

This article is part of the University of Bergen's Global Moments in the Levant project, http://www.globalmoments.uib.no

 1. The information presented in this article was gathered during a total of six weeks’ fieldwork in Damascus in November 2006 and April 2007. Prior to the fieldwork, the Syrian Internet portal Nisa' Suriyya (NS) [Syrian Women] (www.nesasy.com) which publishes in Arabic gave valuable access to the situation of women in contemporary Syria. I systematically read articles that comment on issues related to family law under six entries: ‘women's affairs’, ‘violence against women’, ‘family affairs’, ‘male affairs’, ‘legal studies’ and ‘laws and treaties’. The articles date from March 2006 to 2007, many are written by freelance journalists, but most are excerpts from Syrian daily newspapers and magazines.

 2. ‘Repudiation’ is the technical word for the accepted religious ritual that grants a husband the right to divorce by citing ‘I divorce you’ three times which can be done without the presence of the wife. In Syria, an amendment in 1975 requires that the husband registers divorce after repudiation, but this law does not render a husband's right to practise repudiation illegal.

 3. Arab states include the 22 members of the Arab League.

 4. Compulsory membership in religious groups is also a state policy in Lebanon, Israel and Jordan.

 5. An extreme state policy of non-compliance with shari'a-based rules is the non-registration of children born out of mixed marriages between a Muslim woman and a non-Muslim man who does not convert to Islam. In cases where a Syrian Muslim woman and a Syrian non-Muslim man give birth to children, the ‘penalty of non-compliance’ with the shari'a tenet that prohibits such mixed marriages is to deny the registration of these children in Syrian personal registries and deprive them of Syrian citizenship (Interview, lawyer Rukniya Schahdeh, 26 November 2006).

 6. The Muslim majority of the population in Syria includes the Sunni, the Shi'a and the Alawite communities who share a common family law. The Druze and the Jewish communities each have their own family law. The remaining 11 Christian minority communities are regulated by five different family laws: (1) Greek Orthodox; (2) Syrian Orthodox; (3) Armenian Orthodox; (4) Evangelist and (5) Catholic family law applying to Greek Catholics (Melchites), Armenian Catholics, Syrian Catholics, Maronites, Chaldeans and Latins (Berger 1997, pp. 118–119).

 7. ‘Polygamy’ refers to the practice of a person having several mates irrespective of gender. ‘Polygyny’ refers more precisely to the practice of a male who has more than one female mate.

 8. The questionnaire is entitled ‘Investigation on the opinion of changing laws that are unfair towards the rights of women’ [istitla’ ra'y hawl dururat taghyir al-qawanin al-mujhafa bihaqq al-mar'a].

 9. The precise dates for al-Khatib's sermons are unknown, but they were already recorded and circulated in Damascus and its suburbs on cassette-tapes and in a booklet in January and February 2006, three months after the survey had been conducted. Bassam al-Qadi presented the speeches on the nesasy-website on 17 March 2006. Rudud ‘ala abatil fil-ahwal ash-shakhsiyya lilmar'a, alhalqa 1–10 [Reactions to the atrocities on women in family law, part 1–10].

10. See May Al-Rahbi's limaslahat man al-hujum ‘ala at-tajammu'at an-nisa'iyya? [Who profits from the assault on women's organizations?], 4 March 2007, http://www.nesasy.org/content/view/4397/257/.

11. Suleiman Qubti al-jadid fi qanun al-ahwal al-shakhsiyya liltawa'if al-kathulikiyya’ [What is New in the Personal Status Laws of the Catholic Churches]. [online]. Available from: http://www.nesasy.org/content/view/3778/89/ [Accessed 10 Nov 2006].

12. These include the United Nations Development Fund for Women (Unifem), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), The United Nations Children Fund (Unicef) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

13. See dirasat midaniyya hawlal-unf al-waqi’ alal-mar'a [Fieldwork study on violence against women], a joint report by the Syrian Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Unifem, The Syrian Commission for Family Affairs (SCFA) and The Syrian Women General Union (SWGU) issued in 2005.