Woman in Islamic Shari‘ah
7. Concerning divorce
~ 151 ~
deterrent. Obviously this was a bid to reform, but
this has served only to aggravate the matter. The
ancient Indian religious reformers held that
separation was illegal: they even prohibited women
from remarrying, so that they would be left with no
incentive to seek divorce. The laws were made in
such a way that once marriage ceremonies were
finalized, neither could a man divorce his wife, nor
was it possible for a woman to remarry after leaving
her former husband.
But such reformations were unnatural, and have
been generally detrimental to individuals in Hindu
society. When a man and a woman are unable to
satisfy one another, the whole of their lives is
passed in great bitterness because of there being no
provision for remarriage. They are doomed to
continue to live a tormented life alongside partners
with whom they have nothing in common. I shall
cite here only one of the hundreds and thousands of
such instances which are reported in newspapers
almost everyday, leaving aside those cases which go
unreported. Manu, 25, was a cousin of Khushwant
Singh. He has written in detail about her tragedy in
his “Malice” column.
133
Manu had a flourishing
