Your Email:

Your Name:

To:

Subject:

Message:
Posted by Sara Elghobashy July 28, 2009 The New York Times recently featured an article on a landmark decision by South Africa’s Constitutional Court that guarantees equal inheritance rights for widows in polygamous marriages in the event that no will is left behind by their husband. The lawsuit was filed by Fatima Hassam, a woman whose husband took a second wife, Mariam (the couple’s former maid), who inherited all of his money and property after he died of a heart attack at 59 and left no will behind. The court’s justification? Mariam was still raising three children, while Fatima, on the other hand, had already raised all of her children. Rather than celebrate the court’s decision as a win for Muslim women’s inheritance rights in South Africa, The New York Times decided to bring out the dirt while the women brought out their claws. And so, The Jerry Springer Show begins. The article states, “Ebrahim’s involvement with Maggie [her Christian name - she converted] was hardly a surprise. She already had given birth to two of his children and was pregnant with a third. But a lover’s status is lower than a wife’s, and Ebrahim had promised never to marry this other bedmate half his age, a person Fatima considered ‘a very stupid girl who washed our floors and cleaned our toilets.’ “ The article then claims that Mariam’s side is rarely ever told and so they give her a platform to tell it. How very noble of them. “Fatima was always rude to her, Maggie said. Ebrahim was nicer. ‘I was young and it was wrong, but he told me he got no love from her and his marriage was unhappy,’ she said.” Oh no she didn’t! Fatima girl, whatchu gonna say to that? “Fatima, by contrast, does not see Maggie as a victim. “She blamed my husband, and I told her, it was you, too,” she said. ‘When he started kissing you and touching your bum, you should have come and told me, and I would have put a stop to it.’” Well then. My favorite part of the article, however, is a random woman that has nothing to do with this case, but was asked her opinion on polygamous marriage. She says, “These men running around with younger women, it’s like a sickness,” said Saliema Chafekar, who runs a small grocery. “You hear it all the time.” She reflected further, “If my husband does it, I’ll slit his throat.” Seriously? Whatever happened to real reporting? Image above:  still from The Jerry Springer Show http://www.elanthemag.com/index.php/site/blog_detail/save_the_drama_for_your_mama_ny_times_edition/