Mauritanian Moorish Women: Unfaithfulness, Secret Marriage, or Polygamy

The rate of divorce in our society is awfully increasing over the previous years, this rate has made Mauritania to be the first country in term of divorce rate in the Arab World, according to the latest Strategic Assessment of the Ministry of Women Affairs with 40% in the rural region and 37% in the city. While some of the civil society organizations estimate the rate to be 42% on the national scale. What is amazing is the traditions that make men prefer marry the divorced woman, some studies affirm that 72% of the women divorced one time get married for a second term….

“The statistics and studies reflect the high absurdity and chaos in our society that any other country in world could ever dare to reach this rate of divorce” said Dr. Mohamed Mahmoud and he adds that “the real surprise is when I tell you that the habit of divorce is not new to our society. It is an old custom since the existence of these nomadic people in this empty land. The tribal and religious leaders themselves used to get married and divorce very often. For example, Abdellah Ib Yasin, the religious leader of Mouravides in the 16th century considered divorce something simple. Some historians say that Abdellah Ibn Yasin himself used sometimes to marry and divorce every month”….

A former director of the Division in charge of Family Disputes in the Ministry said that “the reasons of this terrifying rate of divorce in Mauritania can be attributed to many factors. First, the materialistic problems; many conflicts and disagreements that some families bring to our department is related to money. Second, the issue of age, some wives come to us complaining the huge gap of ages that is a result of the fact that many families give their daughters to old men who are sometimes elder than their fathers”...

There is another argument which attributes the phenomenon of divorce to some other different factors as the activist Elhassen Ould Dah declares that “the main reason is the easy procedures of divorce for men because many Mauritanian families do not frankly discuss the family issues before marriage and also the nature of Mauritanian women, especially the Moorish who reject constantly the idea of polygamy. This fact which enslave men within the killing routine of the house, trying to find an alternative atmosphere and the easiest way is to divorce, in addition to this, the kinship marriage and the arranged marriage between relatives without taking into consideration the authentic desire of the two parities as well as the cultural and intellectual differences”….

In this regard, numbers illustrate that women are always the less educated and that is why many studies justify the official statistics and publications concerning the education of women and the rate of illiteracy among Mauritanian women which has, according the statistics of The Cultural Forum of Women, increased to reach 53% in contrast with 35% among men, while the rate of women who have achieved high school is 42% and 13% only have reached the high education at the University, adding to this the royal nature of Mauritanian women, our women are not productive but the consume too much waiting for someone to provide for her what to eat and drink….

The ease or facility of divorce in the mentalities of men makes women expect from the first day of marriage to get divorced on the following day. The traditional society also helps into spreading the culture of divorce and helps the divorced woman to accept it and make men pretend to be interested in the sacked orange….

It is however worth mentioning that while the divorce rate is rapidly increasing among Moorish women it steadily decreases among the Black Mauritanian women as well as the bride price is incredibly getting much high is preventing many men from even thinking to get married. This increase of divorce has brought about a new habit that many women now are working in the rural areas to provide their families where the statistics show 42% in comparison with 37% in the city….

The government has tried to reduce the catastrophic consequences of divorce on individuals as well as families. It has attempted to prevent men from shrinking their duties and responsibilities towards their divorced women and children. This was clearly stated in the regulations set by the government in 2001 which has guaranteed for women their rights and their children…..

Parallel with the phenomenon of divorce in our society, there is also a common habit which is getting married from the divorced women. Men in Moorish society prefer divorced women than the novice ones, according to statistics, the rate of those divorced women who got married for the second time is 72, 5% and 20% for those who have been divorced two times, and 6,7% for the divorced three times, while for those women who have been divorced five times or more the rate is 1,5%.....

Many sociologists see that the reason is due to the low price for getting married with the divorced as well as the widespread of divorce disturbed the social balance to the extent that divorced women are more than those never married, thing which limits the choice of men in addition to the fact that men look only for the experience woman……

Refusing polygamy and disregarding unfaithfulness:

Polygamy among the Moorish community is considered a sort of humiliation and disrespect to the whole family or tribe of the first wife. Traditionally, many religious leaders rejected polygamy because they said it is against the customs and traditions of Moorish morals, so they went to the extent that if a man got married from a second wife his first wife is automatically divorced as always illustrated in the contact from the early beginning. While some religious leaders are calling for stopping this habit as long as it is in blatant contradiction with the teachings of Islam, the government has included if the family code as one of the major conditions of marriage……

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the rate of polygamy in Moorish community is less than 3% and many case of this changes are results of the advent of new ideologies within the Moorish traditional society such as the deplorable poverty. If there is any case of polygamy it should be no more than two wives while in the Black Mauritanians the polygamy rate is more than 39% , 9% of them have four wives. And also as a result of the study of fertility has occilated among the Black community to reach 53,2% in Soneke, 50% in Woolof, and 35,9% in Polar community ( this is always according to the National Bureau of Statistics)……

Moorish women: Secret marriage or polygamy:

In contrast with the prevalence of divorce in our society, there are other increasing strange practices that many experts in sociology attribute to the upheaval changes that are taking place in our society. Many observe that Mauritanian women prefer secret marriage than polygamy because they are afraid of being exposed to the society. They prefer secret marriage but not polygamy in public….

In this regard, many Moorish women turn into blind eyes and deaf ears to the adventures of their husband as much as she can till she decides to be angry and ask for reconciliation or compromise in public but this will only be if she knows that all the neighbors and the families knew about these adventures…..

Many men opt for secret marriage because many women accept it, maybe because women are divorced and need to provide their families and they are in desperate need for help, or because many of these women are already old enough to get married and are afraid of losing the opportunity. Many of these women are also poor and always surrender the desire of old rich men to exploit them…..

These secret marriages are often the real cause of most of the family conflicts, especially when the woman finds herself obliged to acknowledge or reveal the secret after she is obviously pregnant or giving birth. This kind of marriages are now common and accepted by the society; families try to solve these disputes without going to the court due to the fact that many of men involved in secret marriage are public figures or high officials in the government….

Eventually, the relationship between men and women in our society needs a lot of efforts to dig deeper into the origins of the misunderstanding and potential conflict. This conflict is not affecting the momentous future rapport between the two poles of any family, but rather it intimately affects the future generations and the upcoming aspiration of a coherent and cohesive community…..