That said, sometimes a divorce should be fast tracked.
Newlywed husband divorces his wife hours after the ceremony because she was too busy texting her friends to have sex on their wedding night
This happened in Saudi Arabia, which makes me wonder whose daughter this guy married that he didn't take her phone and beat her senseless for the offence. Maybe that was an option, I don't know. Kicking her to the curb was the right thing to do.'When he asked her if her friends were more important than he was, the bride answered that they were.'
Once you agree that divorce is appropriate for some reasons other than infidelity, the only remaining question is where to draw the line.
ReplyDeleteAnd that is where folks generally disagree....
NO SEX = Unfaithful
ReplyDeleteNo sex on the wedding night is as big a red flag as a man can get for no sex for the rest of the marriage.
Not necessarily. It could be a ginormous red flag that maybe this woman married him simply for his money.
DeleteOr that the marriage was arranged against her wishes to this man by the parents. No motivation from her to participate in the marriage it sounds like to me.
She is breaking the marriage contract, sure. But unfaithful?? I don't buy that.
I am thinking though that this woman is going to face far worse consequences from her parents/male siblings than the scorned hubby could ever parcel out. He probably knows that too.
She could be facing severe disfigurement by acid attack, or even honor killing by whatever means they choose. From stones, to fire to even beheading.
This self absorbed young bride brought shame upon her family, and they will exact revenge for that. In that country, you do not under any circumstances, shame your family.
Before I forget, I believe you are correct about the groom getting a real good foretaste of what was to come in the years ahead if he had chosen to stick with it.
"NO SEX = Unfaithful"
DeleteNo. Not having sex with one's husband is not the same as having sex with another man.
It may be valid grounds for a divorce (again, depending on where you place the line), but it is not the same as infidelity.
I tend to side with Anon, to a point. Sex is part of marriage and willingly not engaging in it is being "unfaithful" to the basic expectation of marriage.
DeleteI'll appeal to Rabbi B for this next point. I believe a Jewish women was permitted to divorce her husband if he didn't give her "her fair share" of sex. Good for the goose and all that.
I agree that sleeping around is worse than withholding but it seems like its a form of unfaithfulness.
From an American POV a divorce isn't necessary in this case, they never were married because they didn't consummate the union.
Res Ipsa: "Sex is part of marriage and willingly not engaging in it is being "unfaithful" to the basic expectation of marriage. "
DeleteWord games. You unconsciously admit as much by putting 'unfaithful' within scare quotes.
Under this definition, a man who lies to his wife is also being "unfaithful", and the woman is therefore justified in divorcing him if she wishes.
Words have meanings; 'unfaithful' in this context specifically applies to infidelity.
" From an American POV a divorce isn't necessary in this case, they never were married because they didn't consummate the union."
Yes and no; it varies by state. For example, in Colorado an annulment (not called that, it's actually called an 'invalid marriage') related to no-sex can only be granted if one of the partners is unable to consummate, not merely unwilling to do so. Otherwise, a divorce is necessary. And in the end, a divorce is generally easier to get than an annulment, anyway.
That is exactly why I disagreed with Anon's definition in the first place regarding the term unfaithful. Words do indeed have meaning.
DeleteBackstabbing Liar, breaker of contracts, gold digging trollop, oh I think we can come up with a great list of terms to describe this disingenuous woman and her games that more accurately describe her underhanded and shifty behavior.
Res Ipsa: "That said, sometimes a divorce should be fast tracked."
ReplyDeleteBy whom?
Given your opening statement, one supposes that you are referring to the government, since they are the ones who currently have laws on the books allowing for no-fault divorce.
If this is so, do you honestly believe the government is the best arbiter of whether or not a divorce should be granted? Consider the rise of family courts and the role of women judges therein, as well as the Church/State separation arguments that will be used to reject the historic Biblical grounds for at-fault divorce.
I'm not sure how it works in Saudi Arabia, but it sounds like they have some form of arbitration process for couples. The bride refused to engage in sex after the ceremony. She had zero intention of honoring whatever vows she had said just a few hours before.
DeleteCall it a divorce or an annulment but the man has every right to back out of a bad deal. FWIW the bride is the one refusing to consummate the marriage. It's not like he sampled the goods and decided to back out after deflowering her.
Res Ipsa: "I'm not sure how it works in Saudi Arabia, but it sounds like they have some form of arbitration process for couples."
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure, either, but I do think that the man can get a divorce for any reason whatsoever, while the woman is more limited.
But again, your opening paragraph addressing both no-fault divorce and the effects on society (presumably ours), led me to think you were taking a specific situation in another country and applying it here under our laws.
My apologies if I misconstrued your intent.
I agree with the overall tone that the man should be allowed to divorce under these circumstances. But I also want to point out how it would be more difficult to do so under an at-fault system than it would under a no-fault system, with these additional negatives:
- the need for state legislatures to specify which conditions qualify for adequate grounds for divorce;
- having to go through the entire trial/hearing process;
- having to spend additional money on lawyers to be able to make the case for fault;
- more cases clogging the already clogged legal system;
- disparities between different judges over whether specific cases meet subjective criteria;
- more legal hassles as state laws are tied up in the appeals process, up to and including the US Supreme Court, by those who disagree with where the state legislatures drew the line;
There's probably more, but I think this is sufficient to demonstrate the disadvantages of going back to an at-fault system.
In some of those third world countries, IIRC the man can just announce to his wife that she is no longer his wife, she is discarded. Women do not have many options in those parts of the world.
DeleteMore cases of Saudi men divorcing their wives for reasons other than infidelity...one of them as the man saw his new bride's face for the first time, after they had already gone through with the wedding.
ReplyDeleteWould either of these two men be entitled to fast-track divorce under your system?
Your reading of what I wrote is reasonable. In general I'm not in favor of no fault divorce. It wouldn't apply in this case because one party has a legitimate reason for getting out of the marriage. So I was doubly poor in how I wrote the post.
ReplyDeleteIn the case of the arraigned marriage, yes they should be able to back out of it. That creates a double standard as it would most likely be the man rejecting the women.
In the case of the women with the cell phone addiction probably not.
Being Saudi men it seems like they have other ways to enforce their preferences at home. I wonder why they didn't.
Two of the cases involve cell phones. I think I see where the problem is.
From a legal perspective:
Marriages of short duration with no children involved should be treated differently than when those factors are involved.
- "It wouldn't apply in this case because one party has a legitimate reason for getting out of the marriage."
Delete- "In the case of the arraigned marriage, yes they should be able to back out of it."
- "In the case of the women with the cell phone addiction probably not. "
- "Marriages of short duration with no children involved should be treated differently than when those factors are involved."
Thanks, just getting an idea where you would place the line -- going back to my first comment.
In these cases with the Saudi's I think the factor of if the bride is a virgin or not would play into it. If the man hadn't touched her, her value to another man hasn't been diminished. If however he did and then changed his mind, that is different. The women is less valuable and less likely to be able to remarry.
ReplyDeleteIn the ugly face case, I got the impression that the couple had arranged the marriage themselves, not that their families had done so for them:
Delete"The couple, from the Western Saudi town of Medinah, had agreed to marry each other despite having not met face to face - a popular custom in certain Middle Eastern countries."
In the WhatsApp case, they had been married two years, so presumably she was no longer a virgin. However, in this case, the man felt disrespected by her behavior, and I agree with him -- especially if it had been an ongoing problem for some time.
Along with the expectation of marital sex, there is also such concepts as love, honor, cherish, and respect. To me, those are equally valid reasons as sex to end the marriage if they are no longer present.
Yes, I draw the line farther down than you.
There is always going to be a taint surrounding a returned to her family bride. If she is still untouched, sure that won't be so bad. But she will still wear the stigma of "why did her husband return her to her parents and what is wrong with her?"
DeleteIn a lot of these cases, financial incentives are usually involved and have to be either forfeited or returned.
I suspect that the bottom line is how cranky is the patriarch figure in the family? And how violent are the males of her family going to be over this.