Growing Prosperity Fuels Divorce Rate

In her divorce petition, 30-year-old-civil servant Nadia Ibrahim said she was fed up using her salary to support her unemployed husband Ali and had decided she wanted to spend her money on herself and her kids.

“I’ve asked him to get a job and help support our two children, but the only thing he did was get involved in weapons smuggling which brought trouble not money,” she said. “I got fed up being responsible for him. My salary is for my kids’ expenses and mine only.”

With stressful living conditions in the troubled country putting an increased strain on families and marriages, many Iraqis are deciding that, if they can afford it, life is too short to be unhappily married.

“The biggest rise in divorce rates has been among civil servants, who have recently been given a substantial pay rise,” said Urooba Nusaif, a solicitor specialising in family law.

Lawyer Inam al-Sultani, who heads up a progressive women’s organisation, said, “The number of divorces is rising because people are living under immense amounts of pressure due to the situation in the country. Couples are taking it out on each other. Their relationship is one of the few situations they have control over and divorce seems almost like a positive step.”

Judge Mukdad Abood Sadik agrees, “The economic and security situation is a significant factor in most divorces. It’s not always because people have more money either. Many police and National Guards have resigned due to the constant threat of attack. Their living standards dropped as a result, which puts a strain on the marriage.”

Meanwhile, growing numbers of married men who’ve enjoyed pay rises have opted for second wives – a trend that has rather ironically led to more divorces.

Under Islamic law, a man may have up to four wives, on condition that he can provide financially for them all.

These second marriages, however, frequently lead to a quick divorce when a new wife finds out that she’ll be sharing her husband with someone else.

“Many divorces happen shortly after the marriage contract is signed, without the couple ever actually living together – as soon as the wives find out what has happened,” said Nusaif.

Hussein Muhsin, manager of a marriage contracts office, said, “Men are taking second wives and the women just aren’t standing for it anymore.”

For university student Mais Omar, it took three months to find out she was her husband’s second wife.

“He didn’t really love me, it was just a status thing,” she said. “When I asked him why he had done it, he said he had had a salary raise and could afford the expense of a second house.”

Thair al-Maini, a legal clerk, explained that many men prefer to trick a woman into becoming a second wife, rather than come clean about the situation. Unsurprisingly, such marriages rarely last a long time.

“Some civil servants are using fake IDs to show they are single when they draw up the marriage contract. The new wife discovers that there is already a first Mrs Whatever. And then they get divorced,” he said.

But as well as splitting up marriages, increased job security has, in some cases, enabled true love to run its course.

Mahmood al-Ameri had been in love with a girl for years but could never afford to marry her. With family pressure to settle down growing, he married one of his cousins instead.

“It was a cheaper option, but when I joined the police force after the fall of Saddam’s regime, I got a 450,000 dinars (310 US dollars) salary, so I could divorce my cousin and marry the girl I really loved,” he said.

Haider al-Moosawi is an IWPR trainee in Baghdad.