Trapped

This study explores how the Muslim Sunni Women in the city of Tripoli- Lebanon perceive the the inequity in the rights of women in terms of those of men within the Personal Status codes practiced today in the Sunni Muslim Sharīʻa Courts in the country. Lebanese women and men in general are subject to an imbalanced patronage as a result of the patriarchal conditions dominating the Lebanese society and its various communities. This project further explores the factors that have led to the failure of these women to legally protect themselves against this inequity when perceived as discriminating. This is embedded in the institutionalization of an inequity within the social, economic, and political spheres. The factors behind this institutionalization include aspects related to the kinship culture and traditionalism, the political regime, and the relation between the state and the religious establishments in Lebanon. Patriarchy, patrilineality, i.e. tracing descent, kinship, or title through the male line, and the traditions that contribute to their survival have had a negative effect on the development of women's rights, and the relation between the state and the religious establishment specifies the role the religious establishment has maintained in the process of decision making. In addition, the Islamic laws that are in practice today have been politically influenced and hence are different from the Islamic Laws in principle that have provided an extent of equality among men and women. A change in these has taken place towards an imbalanced inclination towards women and their legal rights originally given to them in the Islamic laws provided by the Prophet himself before his death. This discrimination has become institutionalized in a male-dominant religious world within gender-based differentiating laws. This paper considers the correlations that exist between the Islamic Family Law that are practiced today and the factors mentioned above. In Lebanon, the direct effects of Family Law as practiced today, are studied by presenting most of the provisions that are in practice in the Family Law within the Sunni Community and that have institutionalized the rights of women to become different from those of men. The obstacles in the development of women's rights in citizenship and religious legal laws are a combination of factors rather than the result of one outstanding determinant. This is done in a context of patriarchy in which the different relations among these provisions, patriarchal traditionalism, Lebanese Constitution, nation- formation project of the country and the effect of the interpretations of Family Law within Islam are all interrelated