With numbers that may seem varying, despite their agreement on the same significance, divorce statistics in the Arab world indicate a real and not potential danger that threatens societal construction, and it expresses a series of errors that ultimately lead to that result.
In this increasing breakdown in the disintegration of social structures, calls are mounting to rehabilitate married couples as one of the educational reactions to stop this bleeding.
There are, for example, 6.2 cases of divorce occurring every hour in Saudi Arabia, according to the statistics of the Ministry of Justice in the Kingdom for 2017, that is, about 150 cases per day, in addition to hundreds of cases that occurred without resorting to the courts, as one social study showed that every 10 There are 3 cases of divorce, which means that one third of newly married couples are divorced or in the process of divorce [1].
While Egypt ranks first in the Arab world and globally, according to the latest statistics of the Central Agency for Mobilization and Statistics, which revealed that there were about 198,000 divorce cases during 2017, an increase of 3.2% over 2016. Experts believe that divorce rates in Egypt are on a continuous increase. Previous studies revealed that there is a divorce every 7 minutes, and now there is a divorce every 4 minutes in Egypt[2].
While Tunisia records more than 1,200 divorce cases per month, according to the Tunisian Ministry of Justice, about 4 cases every 3 hours[3]. 2014[4], followed by a significant decline in 2016.
In the far Arab East, the Iraqi divorce rate, according to the federal judicial authority in Iraq, has increased in the last ten years by nearly 52 thousand divorce cases in recent years[5], which is close to the number announced by the Algerian Ministry of Justice for its annual divorce cases[6]. , while the Jordanian Iftaa Department estimated about 15,000 divorce cases, with an annual increase of 1,000 cases[7].
According to social specialists, and others, this significant increase in the rates of separation is due to many considerations that vary between economic at times, and social and psychological at other times, but in the end, it indicates an increasing imbalance in the natural functions of society, whose relations are escaping from maintaining its sustainability.
And on the multiplicity of reasons - material and moral - the social reasons, resulting from a lack of awareness about marital relations, stand firmly behind many cases of separation without an understandable reason, perhaps for the two parties to the relationship themselves in some cases. What are the possible reasons for this sudden coldness and how can we understand them?
one vs two
On July 13, 1960, the American poet and writer Joy Davidman passed away after a long battle with bone cancer. I am suffering from a severe emptiness now, Lord! What is this condition that I did not know before?! It seems that none of us realizes in the prime of his life that loneliness is the price of freedom, and that adherence and commitment are the key to happiness”[8].
This equation in which one's choices vary between marriage and unity has become more acute in the modern era of individualism.
Just as the relationship has its consequences and obligations, it has what distinguishes it and always pushes people to it. However, the rising tendency of individualism, which is exacerbated by technological civilization when a person feels rich from everything, may cause misunderstanding with the partner and accept the difficulties of the relationship.
According to what Lebovitsky’s generation sees, individuality and self-centeredness, or what Lewis expressed in freedom, have become the most prominent feature of human transformations in the postmodern era, which exacerbated his isolation and indifference to what is outside it.
Leibovtsky defines this individualist revolution as “the totality of changes and limitations that were brought about and fiercely defended by the modernist revolution...until the individual became the central value with which life begins and ends there”[10].
This is something that can be linked to the disorder of the family situation, as in the analysis of the journalist writer "Ghida Abu Khairan" about individualism and family gathering, she says: "According to the individualistic process that has become dominating societies, the individual has become focused in his individual choices that include beliefs, work, education, family, friendships and relationships The form of marriage is no longer the same as it was before, and the roles are no longer the same as they were customary” [11].
However, despite some of the theses that see individuality in the process of fading, such as the thesis of "Michael Floy" which believes that "the essence of individuality itself has been undermined to some extent by the claim of some neuroscientists who saw that the oneness of the self is nothing but an illusion created by the brain in order to provide comfort stability and continuity” [12].
Despite this, other reasons may be behind the failure (non-physical) of marital relations other than incompatibility or psychological comfort.
Running on quicksand
In an article for him in Observer magazine, Phil Hogan states that marital relationships always witness critical moments and bad crises, but the difference in our current era from the previous one lies in the amazing speed with which we have become bored with these relationships [13].
That speed, which is similar to running over a vast soil of quicksand, is represented in the consumption that extends from the consumption of material and luxuries to the consumption of relationships and emotions. The consumer society judges its members and evaluates them based on their ability to consume [14].
Or as “Victor Leblo” said, “We need things that are consumed, burned, worn out, replaced, and disposed of at an irreplaceable speed.”[15] The waste culture, which is always looking for quick movement between things and does not believe in permanence and recycling, is crawling towards the body. The human relationship from the outside and the human relationship from the inside, so temporary relationships became commensurate with the new human’s need for replacement, or, as Baumann says: “A nation that believes in the necessity of permanent adaptation to the changing labor market cannot seek the help of patience in order to build a human relationship”[16]. .
Social media has also contributed, in a way, to accelerating the apathy rate of relationships or hollowing them out of their reality, as a possible result of the interest in displaying love and understanding between spouses about their practice in real life, with what the researcher “Khadija Jaafar” calls the sedition of public love[17].
This is what the Lebanese writer "Tony Saghbini" agrees;
He believes that the reliance on social networks increases "the more intimate relationships take a step back"[18].
While in fact - the means of communication - may cause the separation of the family island into isolated islands, as explained by "Michelle Schlütter" and "David Lee" that we have come to wear privacy as we wear clothes that protect us from atmospheric pressure[19], homes are no longer The warm islands of intimacy among the cold seas of privacy, rather they have turned from common arenas of love and friendship to arenas for skirmishes and clashes that reject the interference and intrusion of others[20].
In the face of fragmentation
In one of the rehabilitation courses for marriage in Egypt, researcher and lecturer "Ayman Abdel Rahim" says that the rehabilitation courses for marriage have become more necessary because of the mistakes that society suffers in establishing married life and ending with one of two results: either the actual divorce, or the hidden separation in which the spouses remain While the romantic relationship has already ended, the blame here is attributed to the societal failure in marital education.
This is the inability that led many official institutions in some countries, such as the Department of the Chief Justice in Amman[21], or the Dar al-Ifta in Egypt, to organize rehabilitation courses for those who are about to marry, “in order to limit the spread of divorce, which reached 40% in 2015, and rehabilitate Those who are about to get married with marital life skills and how to deal with the life problems and pressures that the spouses face”[22].
In some countries, the matter has even reached an almost essential condition for marriage, as in “Malaysia,” which calls the course certificate a “family driver’s license”[23].
But on the other hand, some people do not see what the organizers of these courses see. Ruqayya Maamari, a professor of Sharia sciences, says that the skills required for the success of married life “are too great to be taught in a qualifying course within a few days.. It guarantees us a generation capable of bearing the responsibility of marriage in all its aspects”[24].
However, according to Ayman Abdel Rahim’s explanation for these courses, he does not deny the importance of education as a primary factor in raising awareness, but what if reality tells us the failure of that education with many young people who are unaware of what they are about to achieve from the common life, so this This type of rehabilitation, according to "Abdul Rahim", is mainly to compensate for the society's inability to carry out its functions.
We do not hold courses - for example - to teach parents how to help their children move or learn to speak, as these are jobs that are still active in society, but, according to him, we do this in marriage because of the societal inability, as a recurring phenomenon and not in general, in carrying out this role and the lack of awareness in it.
In the end, the reasons for the social failure to maintain marital relationships with great successes appear to be a phenomenon that the numbers express unequivocally, which puts us in front of many questions about the location of the imbalance and the necessity of treatment.
Between individualism, as some see it, and consumerism, as others see it, there may be other reasons that contribute to making divorce.
However, these reasons will remain intertwined and shared in one axis, which is ignorance of the nature of married life and the costs of coexistence, which individualism does not address, nor can the mindset accustomed to consuming things, including relationships, understand it.
Accordingly, the awareness-raising trend to rehabilitate those who are about to get married seems important to restore society to its roles again and to preserve its basic building block represented in the family, and it seems that we need to deal with the matter without shame;
Because acknowledging the shortcoming may prompt it to rectify it, while ignoring it may help to multiply the aforementioned statistics.
Despite the criticisms that are received about the transformation of the rehabilitation paths for married couples into a consumerist pattern, maintaining this path, while educating it and preserving the limits of speakers within it, can contribute mainly to educating individuals who are about to marry the nature of this social relationship in accordance with the requirements of reality and the intellectual changes based on it It may directly affect the strength and durability of the relationship.