Saudi women blamed for high divorce rates

Saudi woman have been blamed more than men for the high divorce rate in the Gulf Kingdom and one of the main reasons is their disobedience.

A study issued this week by a local legal centre showed there are 11 key reasons for the surge in divorces in the world’s largest oil exporter.

Six of them are related to women and four to men while the 11th reason has to do with the couple’s families and their interference in their marital life, showed the study by the Riyadh-based consultancy Centre for Legal Training.

“One of the main reasons for the high divorce in Saudi Arabia is the wife’s failure to fully perform her duties towards her husband, her going out without her husband’s permission and non-respect of him.

“These things normally lead the husband to hate his wife and push him to divorce her,” the study said.

It also blamed husbands who abuse their wives, fail to perform their duty towards them and support the family, addiction to liquor or drugs and going out late night.

“Another important reason is that the interference by families in the couple’s affairs and the fact that many women are forced by their families to marry men they do not know.”

Saudi Arabia has one of the world’s highest divorce rates, recording an average one divorce case every half an hour in 2012, when they totaled 18,765.

According to a recent official study, the divorce cases were more than 35 per cent of the marriages. “This is far above the international rate of between 18 and 22 per cent. In some years, it exceeded 40 per cent in the Kingdom,” the study said.

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