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D R A M A_ Q U E E N Drama
Queen: Where are the farting toys of
yesteryear?
- - - - - - - - - - T A B L E_T A L K Are you raising your grandchildren? How did that come about? Join the discussion in Table Talk's Mothers area ___________________
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BY CYNTHIA JOYCE | The scene is a small courtroom in Tehran. The cast is a steady stream of veiled women who have come here in an attempt to change their lives. There's the 16-year-old girl who wants to leave her 38-year-old husband and go back to school; the mother of two grown children who wants to punish her husband of 30 years for beating her; the young mother who wants to leave her husband for another man but doesn't want to give up her children. Three very different circumstances, with seemingly one solution: divorce. Or maybe not. As the captivating documentary "Divorce Iranian Style" shows, Islamic law makes it almost impossible for women who want a divorce to get one without the consent of their husbands. And because men risk losing their financial security if they divorce, they often choose to stay married -- even if their wives make their lives a living hell. If, however, a woman can prove to the family courts that her husband is either impotent or insane, she stands a chance in the courts. It's this provision that makes "Divorce Iranian Style" a fascinating and often highly entertaining film, as we watch these women use a combination of histrionics and shrewd tactics to demand rights they don't have. One woman insists her husband is crazy because he won't let her use the phone, crying to the judge at one moment and cheekily grinning at the camera the next. Another whispers to the judge that her husband hasn't touched her since the wedding, and expresses her shame at having to admit this in public. There is a tragic dimension to each of their stories, though none of the women see themselves as victims. Nor do filmmakers Kim Longinotto and Ziba Mir-Hosseini see them as victims, but rather as pioneers in a legal system caught between religious tradition and modern reality. Salon recently spoke with Longinotto and Mir-Hosseini at New York's Film Forum, where "Divorce Iranian Style" made its East Coast premiere. Are most women aware, when they first marry, of their legal status and rights? Mir-Hosseini: It's really difficult to generalize. In 1979, when the revolution happened, something like 68 percent of the population lived in villages. Now somewhere around 70 percent live in the city. So Iranian society has changed a lot. But in my own marriage, my second marriage, I was 28, I had just finished my Ph.D. and I fell in love. I was very educated, and it was my choice to marry. But I wanted the right to divorce -- a woman can stipulate in the marriage contract to have the right to divorce. My husband said, "No, no, how can you think about divorce now when we are so much in love? If you want a divorce, do you think I am the kind of man to refuse you?" I trusted him. That's why I signed the marriage contract. So many women like me start their life on the assumption that there is total equality and harmony. I thought, this law will not apply to us, we have a different understanding. But when the relationship broke down, he refused to give me a divorce -- he just wanted to keep me in a state of limbo. At the time of marriage, I thought that it was based on equality. But when it came to the divorce, I realized it wasn't there. One of the most shocking moments in the film is when the judge orders a woman to win her husband back by making herself more attractive. It seems like such an absurd suggestion, and yet I'm sure her reply -- "Why should I make more compromises; I've been compromising for 30 years?" -- would resonate with plenty of Western women as well. Mir-Hosseini: It's always that way, everywhere in the world. The more women compromise, the more the other side expects. And yet women are very much valued in Iranian society. It might sound very strange and bizarre, but they are. Especially if they are professional women, they are very much treated with respect. Women are very much loved and valued as daughters -- that is where they get their strength. After my mother died, and everything collapsed, I realized that she was the one who was holding everyone together. In all the cases that we saw, the marriages broke down why? Because these men did not accept those strong women. They want to control them within the family. So these women [in the film] do not put up with that. When there is harmony and balance, I would say marriage in Iran is egalitarian in practice, though not in a legal sense. Women have different spheres of action, but they have a great deal of freedom within that. And that is where these women get their strength. There is a confidence, a soft and inner confidence, which comes from their religious belief, and from the way that the society sees them, and the way that they see their rights in Islam. N E X T_ P A G E: Why would a man want to stay in an unhappy marriage? |
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