Islamabad, April 12 (IANS) Amid dissolution of a marriage in Pakistan, no matter which side initiated it, the fact that property, which is usually in the husband’s name, serves as a hindrance to wives’ being able to claim their rights or their worth within the marriage, according to an attorney and human rights activist.
As a result, Rafia Zakaria, in an opinion piece in the daily Dawn, says that it is common for married men in the country to exercise financial control over assets in order to ensure that all property acquired during the marriage is in their name, even when it results in divorce. She highlighted that the situation becomes tougher for women stuck in abusive marriages.
Zakaria has a case in hand. A former PAF officer, Amara Waqas, had married in 2015, but continuing with the tradition, her husband continued his control over the assets, which were bought during the marriage, even after their union ended. It included a Suzuki Cultus car, household items that were used by the couple, and even the dowry items that were brought by Waqas.
Zakaria writes that when Waqas requested that these items should be returned to her, she was not only refused, but it was also alleged that she had no share in the car since it was registered in her husband’s name. Waqas, who had already filed for ‘khula’, then reportedly moved the Islamabad High Court (IHC) after earlier lower court orders had refused to grant her relief in respect of the property.
‘Khula’, a legal and religious process in Islamic law, allows a Muslim woman to initiate divorce, often without her husband’s consent, by returning the dower (mahr) or by offering compensation.
During the hearing this year, Waqas reportedly sought to retrieve her share of the property that was acquired, in whole or in part, during the marriage. She particularly argued that since she had contributed to the purchase of the Suzuki Cultus car, it was partially owned by her, Zakaria wrote.
Giving a ray of hope to millions of women in Pakistani marriages, Zakaria noted that Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani of the IHC referred to the religious concept of marriage as a partnership between husband and wife. He reportedly said in his judgment that even though husbands are usually the “financial maintainers” of their wives, the latter provide many things that are not “enumerated in monetary terms”.
“Justice Kayani cited from Surah Baqarah, which directs husbands to “give them [a gift of] compensation, the wealthy according to his capability and the poor according to his capability” and that suitable compensation is the husband’s duty; he also cited another verse to establish that in Islam women are entitled to just compensation,” she said.
Zakaria observed that the fear of no financial support keeps women in bad marriages.
She mentioned that in the past, Pakistani courts have not established what just compensation should be beyond the haq meher or dower that is stated in the nikahnama of the couple. “In fact, if marriage is described as a partnership, then it follows that assets must also be disposed of equitably between the two parties. This principle and the concept of equitable distribution are used in many other Muslim countries, including Malaysia, Indonesia and Turkiye, where courts look beyond formal ownership,” she noted.
In Waqas’ case, the Suzuki Cultus was the most valuable item in the dispute. Despite the car being in the husband’s name, the court looked at the fact that the “seed money was provided by the wife” (thus an actual financial contribution) and also the fact that the wife has provided “domestic support to the husband”. Zakaria said that this led the court to declare that such a title was not decisive and that the matter required reconsideration.
According to Zakaria, the court’s decision, which is in view of the division of assets related to divorce, also affects marital relationships in Pakistan at large. “This is because in millions of such relationships, men threaten their wives with divorce and thus financial destitution by noting that they get to keep everything from the house to the car because everything is ‘in their name’, and they expect the courts to uphold this,” she said in her piece.
Moreover, the human rights activist emphasised that this instance of the IHC recognising the need to consider contributions beyond title should give these “financially abusive husbands a pause”, because Zakaria feels that just ownership in name cannot be the sole consideration.
–IANS
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