Marriage has been part of both human discourse and social organization across cultures and down the centuries. One aspect of this is the historical custom of marriage as an affair of state, undertaken for example by the royal houses of Europe to cement alliances and/or achieve political stability. More genrally, marriage has historically been linked to social cohesion. Equally, and as part of that dynamic, marriage has had a religious dimension and a sacral character, although some marriages are contracted outside religion and although some relationships fall outside the formal marital structure. Every important culture in the world has generally accepted marriage protocols that make religion and regular social interactions overlap. Only in 20th-century Western culture did marriage become significantly secular.
Marriage protocols referenced in the Holy Quran of Islam explain that men, as the stronger and more important marriage partners, should protect and maintain their "devoutly obedient" and "lawful," or chaste, women. Husbands who fear disloyalty or bad conduct may admonish wives, withhold sex, and beat them but lightly until they "return to obedience" (Quran, 4.34). Social differentials between men and women have yielded an interpretation of male authority over women not in terms of obligation to but control over them. A woman's husband "possesses her body by law, rather than by emotional bond" (Heaton, 1996, p. 43). Despite modern attempts to raise Islamic women's status, the tradition of female inferiority is intact. For example, husbands may have up to four wives, and in almost all cases only husbands can initiate divorce (Esposito, 1998, p. xii). Although details of marriage and family life vary from country to country, some features of are consistent throughout Islamic culture: "Sharia law regulates the husband's repudiation of his wife (divorce), polygamy, inheritance" (Heaton, 1996, p. 43). On the other hand, enforcement...