QATIF: A sheikh in Qatif was forced to intervene after a woman resolved to divorce her husband after barely one day because he spent more time on their wedding night with his pet birds than he did with her. Al-Riyadh Arabic daily said the woman deemed it an “unforgivable insult” that her husband left her on the wedding night to attend to the birds he breeds and which reportedly “pervade every room of his house, including the bedroom”. Sheikh Muhammad Al-Jairani who functions as a judge in marriage affairs told Al-Riyadh that he managed to get the woman to retract her decision by securing a pledge from the husband to stop breeding birds at the house. “The groom entered the bedroom, took off his cloak, and then left to go and attend to his birds,” Sheikh Muhammad said. “His leaving to tend to the birds left the bride feeling humiliated and she took it as a slight to her dignity, as he spent a long time with his birds.” The sheikh advised that husbands should “give utmost attention to their wives and not be unfair to them whatever the reason”. “This sort of thing can cause breakups and lead to broken homes,” he said. “The divorce rate in Qatif has already reached 10 percent.”
