Singapore bans divorce via SMS.
December 20, 2001 10:42 PM   Subscribe

Singapore bans divorce via SMS. I think what weirds me out most about this is that apparently it's still legal in Dubai... and not infrequent.
posted by louie (5 comments total)
 
Yeah, louie, it's really strange when a culture completely different from ours exemplifies itself in a story like this. I have two points....

1) This is hard for me to swallow as a "feminist" male. I hate stuff like this, when males have the dominant role in a marraige, which i see as a mutual ordeal, and the ability to end it on such minor grounds.
2) Yet, for most "Americans", Singapore is still probably a place where people have Yaks in their rice fields. I'm sure this will blow some minds, sadly enough not for the inherent absurdity, but for the fact that people there have advanced cell phones. Pitiful, i say. Pitiful.
posted by Ufez Jones at 11:01 PM on December 20, 2001


'it's still legal in Dubai'

Still, look on the birght side; you can have a really good laugh if you get hold of your mates phone.

Louie, I'm going to 'weird' you out some more. Did you know that it is illegal, and I mean illegal, for a married women to refuse sex. The thinking behind that stems back to the great man, Moh, who wanted to prevent women from using sex to get what they want. Those who think that there should be parity in that between the sexes, I'd remind you of Frazier comment on the subject, 'Men can't use sex to get what they want, sex is what they want.'

Moving on, did you also know that muslim men are allowed to engage legally in temporary marriages. These can be 1 hour long, 6 months, whatever. A contract is drawn up, stating the exact length of the marriage, and what the women will receive at the end. That can be nothing. This was introduced to get around the fact that infidelity was/is a crime punishable by death, and that Moh thought that men needed an out. Say for instance they was traveling, or a wife got ill, or she got old, etc. and the man didn't want to take on another wife. Obviously the same does not apply for women, and quite right too.
posted by RobertLoch at 11:33 PM on December 20, 2001


In some Muslim sects, repeating the word Talak three times constitutes a divorce.
posted by riffola at 1:20 AM on December 21, 2001


It wasn't so much the implied lack of respect for women that I found off (I'd have to be living in a cave not to know about that); it was the technological means. Asimov's notion of a race of people without contact between them was always (I thought) the most ridiculous and farfetched notion of his (even moreso than psychohistory); this is another little display of how wrong I am about that.
posted by louie at 6:09 AM on December 21, 2001


RobertLoch: Did you know that it is illegal, and I mean illegal, for a married women to refuse sex

Illegal for them to refuse sex to their husbands, or any man who goes up to them on the street?

And what are the requirements for becoming a citizen? ;)
posted by bingo at 10:19 AM on December 21, 2001


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