The Reformation of Greek-Orthodox Family Law: The Example of Jordan
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Transcript: English(auto-generated)
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Imagine that in Germany, different family laws would be applied to different religious communities. So as a Protestant, you would apply a different law than your Catholic or your Muslim friend. As a Protestant Christian, if you wanted to register a marriage,
00:23
divorce your spouse or file for custody, you would turn to your local Protestant church, where in the adjacent building, the pastor in his capacity as judge would adjudicate your case. You would not be allowed to be without confessional or religious affiliation, as in such a case, the legal system would be unable to accommodate you.
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What may sound rather bizarre to our Western contemporary ears is the reality in many countries around the world. In about one third of all countries worldwide, the applicable family law is based on the religious and sometimes the confessional or ethnic affiliation of the parties involved. That is also the case in Jordan.
01:00
In Jordan, 11 Christian communities are officially recognized. That means that these communities have the right to apply their own family laws and to establish their own church courts. Muslim courts, so-called Sharia courts, would have jurisdiction over Muslim citizens in matters of family law, and the church courts adjudicate the family law matters of their own communities.
01:22
When we look at the Islamic family law, we've seen many reforms taking place since the 2000s. So for example, the law was reformed in 2001, in 2010, and again in 2019. However, when we look at the family laws of Christian communities, they lag behind this reform dynamic. Let's consider the Byzantine family code.
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That is the law the Greek Orthodox community, Jordan's largest and oldest Christian community applies. The law has not been reformed at all since the creation of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in 1946, and it is unclear even to members of the church and church court judges when the last reform took place. So the question is, why is it seemingly more difficult
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to reform the family laws of Christian communities than the Islamic family law? This question becomes even more compelling when we consider individual provisions of the Byzantine family code. With respect to divorce, divorce is fault-based and gendered. So the husband, for example, can petition the court for divorce
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if his wife attends race and hunting parties or destroys the husband's sperm on purpose or engages in extra marital sexual relationships. The wife by contrast can petition the church court for divorce if her husband does not financially provide for her or abandons her for a period of at least three years.
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The Byzantine family code explicitly stipulates that physical violence like hitting is not a reason for divorce. Also, it stipulates that parties cannot agree to divorce. So there's no divorce for mutual agreement, which makes it difficult for men and women to divorce. With respect to maintenance, the husband is obliged to financially provide
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for his wife and children. However, women lose their right to maintenance if they are considered disobedient, a provision husbands often use when they wanna circumvent their financial obligations, as I've seen by looking at court documents. Children who are born out of wedlock do not have the right to inherit
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from their biological fathers, and there's no obligation for the biological father to financially maintain these children. According to the Byzantine family code, the official marriage age is 12 for girls and 14 for boys. This makes the question why it is difficult to reform the Byzantine family code even more puzzling, given all the discriminatory provisions against women,
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but also children who were born out of wedlock that the law contains. I mainly use qualitative research methods. Doing research on the family laws of Christian communities is challenging for several reasons. First of all, the court judgments, the church courts issue
04:02
as well as the laws the communities apply are not published. And this is one of the reasons why field work is essential to my work. I've spent several months in Jordan and made a field work trip to Jerusalem. During that time, I've conducted interviews with lawyers who work in the church court, church court judges, activists who campaign for legal change, politicians,
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and members of the different churches. I also attended public gatherings organized by activists who campaign for legal change. However, these sources only tell us part of the story. This is why I also analyze a large number of written sources, such as laws, regulations, minutes of parliamentary debates, pamphlets
04:42
issued by advocacy groups. The use of empirical evidence that is derived from different methods and different types of data helps me to ensure the validity of my findings. My key finding is that state law pluralism, so a system in which different family laws
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apply to different religious communities, creates conditions that make it particularly challenging to reform the laws of religious minorities. That is the case for five main reasons. First, in the case of Jordan, jurisdiction, territory, and sovereignty do not map onto each other in the case of the Byzantine Family Code.
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The Byzantine Family Code is a regional, not a national law. Greek Orthodox Christians in Jordan belong to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem that encompasses Israel, Palestine, and Jordan. The law is applied in all of these three countries. The head of the community, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch in Jerusalem,
05:41
needs to prove any changes that are being made to the Byzantine Family Code. So in the case of the Byzantine Family Code, the Jordanian government is not the lawmaker and therefore cannot influence change. Second, the transnational structure of the church courts and the Byzantine Family Code make advocacy efforts more challenging. For example, women's groups who want
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the Islamic Family Law to change address their demands to the state. So they lobby parliament, they lobby the government. But since the state is not the lawmaker when it comes to the Christian family laws, Christians need to coordinate with different people in different countries, and that makes it more challenging.
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Third, the church is a hierarchical organization and the leadership of the church and the community are divided on the issue of reform. It is the site of an ongoing struggle between the upper echelon of the church, which is dominated by ethnic Greeks, and the lower ranking Arab clergy and Arab congregation over resources and political representation.
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In the past, Greek bishops have shown little interest in addressing the grievances of the Arab congregation. Fourth, state law pluralism creates a situation in which religious minorities face discrimination from their own churches as well as the state. Discrimination in state law mainly concerns conversion and interreligious marriage.
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So while a Muslim man can enter into a valid marriage with a Christian or Jewish woman, a Muslim woman cannot marry a non-Muslim man. Similarly, conversion is allowed only in one direction. So while a Christian can convert to Islam, a Muslim cannot convert to Christianity as this would constitute an act of apostasy.
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So while Christians want discrimination in state law to change, they also need the state to pressure the churches to reform their family laws. Adding to this is the regional situation. War and conflict in the region have made Christian Jordanians more dependent on their local churches as well as the Jordanian monarchy,
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as they see these institutions as guarantors of their own safety and security. This creates a web of dependencies that needs to be carefully maneuvered. The dilemma Christians in Jordan face is that while the Jordanian monarchy is an effective source of protection in an unsecure regional environment,
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it is also the source of legal discrimination. Fifth, the history of state law pluralism matters. During the Ottoman Empire, and especially during the 19th century, Christian and Jewish communities enjoyed a certain degree of legal autonomy. In 1917, the Ottomans issued a family law that applied to all people living in the Ottoman Empire,
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so Muslims, Christians, and Jews. They did that to increase state sovereignty. However, the British mandate authorities during the colonial period only applied this law to Muslims, thereby Christian communities regained the legal autonomy they had lost, at least formally. The British institutionalized communal life
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along religious lines. As a result, Christian Jordanians became a religious minority and their legal affairs became a sensitive issue because they touched upon their communal organization. Until today, Christian legal affairs are not merely a Jordanian matter. Today, Jordan is very dependent on Western,
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predominantly Christian donor countries, and is therefore reluctant to intervene in Christian legal affairs, as this could be seen as an act of restricting religious freedom. The legal autonomy of Christian communities is, in this case, too often mistakenly understood as a form of religious freedom, regardless of how discriminatory these systems are
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for power minorities, such as women and children born out of wedlock. State law pluralism is a social reality in about one third of all countries worldwide. It affects millions of people. So understanding how these systems have developed
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and how they work, helps us to understand how gender and religious inequality has developed over time and how it can change. Also, family laws touch up many of the fundamental societal questions. What is the place of religion within the state? How are gender and inter-religious relations organized? I hope that my work will contribute
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to a better understanding of these matters. Also, when we look at research that has already been conducted, we can see that there's a focus on Islamic family law. Little attention has been paid to the family laws of Christian communities, even though these laws exist in many different countries. Even on the international level, the focus is always on Islamic law.
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When we take the UN Women's Rights Convention, CEDAW, it exerts pressure on states to bring their family laws in accordance with CEDAW, so with gender equality. And while there is pressure to reform the Islamic family laws, there's no pressure to amend the Christian laws as the Christian laws almost are not featured in these debates.
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That is surprising, given that as Islamic family law, the Christian family laws are gendered as we've seen. And this is one of the reasons why local actors perceive the international system as biased and partisan. My approach will help to represent law in a more holistic way and to pay tribute to the legal diversity
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that exists in the region. This research is part of a broader book project on the family and inheritance laws of Christian minorities in Muslim majority jurisdictions. In Jordan, like in many other countries in the region, Christian communities apply the Islamic inheritance law.
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In general, Sunni and Shia inheritance law upholds the system of two shares for men and one share for women of the same degree. I'm currently preparing a qualitative survey that will measure attitudes of and practices of Christian and Muslim Jordanians to substantiate how inheritance works
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and what Muslims and Christians think about the current inherited system. Qualitative research has shown that Muslim women often do not inherit land. They often renounce their inheritance share in favor of their brothers or male members of the family. Interviews I've conducted with Christian women in Jordan also confirm that they often do not inherit land.
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The survey helps me to understand how widespread these practices are. How many women renounce their inheritance share and what do women get in return? Also, are women content with their decision to renounce their inheritance share? How do socioeconomical factors shape attitudes towards inheritance?
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Are Muslim and Christian Jordanians in favor of upholding unequal inheritance shares for men and women, or do they want the system to change? The survey will help me to make representative claims about patterns of inheritance, as well as attitudes towards inheritance of Muslim and Christian Jordanians.
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