UNITED ARAB REPUBLIC: The House of Obedience

For Egyptian men, marriage has long been a most enjoyable custom. By tradition, any Moslem husband tired of his bride had simply to say thrice, "I divorce thee," and the marriage was over and done with. And there was a special added, non-Islamic benefit. If the wife left him and went home to mother, and her husband still wanted her, he had simply to appeal to the courts, and the judge would obligingly sentence her to the Bait al-Taah, the House of Obedience. Under this dread practice, the police would arrest the woman wherever they found her—on the street, in...

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