The General Court in Riyadh is looking into a lawsuit filed by a girl against her father for allegedly obstructing her marriage to a man who proposed to her. After some lengthy deliberations, the judge decided that the two should marry despite her father's rejection. The judge said he based his decision on the jurisprudent opinion which says that in case a guardian obstructs his subject's marriage for unacceptable reasons, guardianship should be transferred to the judiciary. After holding several mediation sessions between father and daughter, the judge summoned the girl's suitor, who reaffirmed his desire to marry her. The judge approved that the girl, who cannot be named for judicial reasons, has the right to marry her suitor as decreed by Shariah. Before passing his verdict, the judge had inquired about the suitor's legibility. The man was found to be qualified. He has a job as an imam and orator of a mosque in the Saudi capital. The judge's investigation also showed that the reasons her father had shown for rejecting the groom had no basis in Shariah. Shariah stipulates that at 28 years of age, the daughter is old enough to decide her own future. Dr. Suhaila Zain Al-Abedeen, head of the Information and Coordination Center at the National Human Rights Society (NHRS), said there are many similar cases, called “Adhul” in Arabic. The term “Adhul” in Shariah refers to the obstruction of a girl's possible marriage by guardians, usually the fathers. Zain Al-Abedeen said that so far, there are more than 45 obstruction cases filed by women against their fathers over the past three years. She added that most of the women who approached the NHRS now live in social protection houses for fear of, or in some cases because of, violence against them by their families. Regarding the reasons behind the proliferation of this phenomenon in the Saudi society, Zain Al-Abedeen said there are several, mostly having to do with social customs and traditions. “It is a tribal custom that girls should be married to men belonging to the same tribe,” she said. “In many cases, girls are deprived of getting married to men from outside the tribe. Nevertheless, tribal norms force girls to marry their cousins.” In other regions in the Kingdom, Zain Al-Abedeen said, girls are made to select between marrying a man from their same tribe or being disinherited. “This mainly stems from the misconception many families believe in, that some of the youths are vying for girls' fortune, while they (the girls folks) are keen that the family's wealth remains within the family.” Another reason that some fathers don't allow their working daughters to get married is because they want to take away their salaries. She said when such cases are pressed in a court of law, if a judge finds that the father or guardian is obstructing a woman's marriage for one of these reasons, and the judge is positive that the suitor is capable of sustaining the marriage, he will almost certainly rule in favor of the woman and her suitor, provided that the suitor is Saudi. If the suitor is a foreigner, the judge will most probably throw out the plaintiff's case. Zain Al-Abedeen added that there are several cases of this type in courts involving foreigners. “If the father's girl is Saudi and her mother is a foreigner, the father's consent is a must,” she said. She further pointed out that in case a judge finds that the father insists on obstructing his daughter's marriage for tribal and financial reasons, the father runs the risk of being sentenced up to two years in prison. Zain Al-Abedeen said that marriage obstruction cases usually take a long time to be resolved in courts, adding that with the current reactivation of the judiciary system, litigation will be expedited. She hoped that under the current judiciary system, judges would be able to finalize such cases very quickly, because “it is unfair for women to be deprived of their divinely decreed right for no other reason than to satisfy their fathers' ulterior motives.” __
