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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
If a Muslim woman wants to divorce, she may, but has the addl hurdle of seeking a divorce through the court. A man needs two witnesses. The addl requirement acts as a safeguard for women in a system entrenched with institutional discrimination toward women, as it is in place to ensure a woman is not making a decision that will be more harmful to her in the long run. Moreover, men are not permitted to take back anything they bestowed to the wife during the marriage. This is in stark contrast to divorce laws in the US, where spouses often fight for who gets what, and women are in financial hardship after divorce.

Overall, it looks to me that Islam does a fine job of providing true "equality" because it is a more just system.

You follow me?? [/quote]
You're doing the typical Muslim thing where they say the arrangements of their religion is perfect and whatever seems imperfect is really for your own good.  Unequal rights to divorce for women? That's for your own good! Cannot travel without male companion? That's for your own good! Have to cede custody of children if you remarry? That's for your own good! Cannot marry without permission of legal guardian? It's for your own good!

So to address, just to humor you, the weak argument you make about divorce:

The system that is entrenched with institutional discrimination toward women did not fall from the sky.  It was created and enshrined by that very same religion.  The religion that does not see women as capable makers of their own decision and therefore wants to "protect them" from themselves.

Men are not permitted to take back anything they bestowed on the wife during marriage? That's only if divorce is initiated by men.  If initiated by a woman, it is very common for women to buy out their way out of the marriage by returning their wedding gift, for which ample scriptural proof is in fact available in the ahadith.

Furthermore, you know what else men are not required to do upon divorce? Share with the wife anything the couple accumulated during marriage.  Theoretically, a scenario where a rich husband divorces his homemaker wife of 30 years and sends her off with three months' of maintenance, is perfectly legal Islamically.  Doesn't seen fair? It didn't seem fair to the Indian courts either, which ushered in a famous case of Shah Bano, an elderly woman tossed out by her rich husband with nothing. When the court attempted to seek redress via alimony and property division similar to what is available to Hindu women, Muslims went out to demonstrate.  India had to weasel out of this predicament by creating a special fund dedicated to maintenance of women who were cruelly - and yet irreproachably, as far as Islam is concerned - tossed out by their husbands. [/quote]

Ms. Bano had an islamic marriage apparently. Yet when her husband kicked her out, she wanted Indian divorce law to apply. Can't have it both ways. If you choose to have an islamic marriage, then you've essentially signed a contract, similar to a prenup, and your divorce will also be under Islamic law. Ms. Begum should have collected her dowry and her male relatives should have supported her. That would have been the proper thing to do. 
You brought up this case because it triggers a lot of negative emotions about the way the husband treated his wife and you hoped this would reflect badly on Islam. It doesn't. It reflects badly on the husband. He was a cad. He took a second wife, which he claims he was permissible to do under Islam, and then kicked his first wife out along with their five children. He was a monster who did grave injustice to his wife. He, in no way, behaved islamically. First of all, a husband may not arbitrarily take a second wife simply on a whim. Secondly, the husband may not kick his wife out without providing accommodations for her (at minimum the dowry and any gifts he bestowed to her). Thirdly, he cut off his relations with his five children, several of them who were adult males and would have received inheritance from him to help support their mother. And lastly, the wife was opting out and trying to receive support via Indian nonIslamic law rather than Islamic law even though her marriage contract was under Islamic law.

This case was a classic example of what happens when islamic law doesn't apply. Ms. Bano should simply have been supported by her male relatives. If that happened, there would have been no need for her to seek support from her husband.[/quote]

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