A Negated Life

Glacier, Osire

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-53285-1_4

A Negated Life

Osire Glacier²

Chapter
First Online: 25 April 2017

349 Accesses

Abstract

The denial of women’s lives is the ultimate consequence of writings of the body. According to the androcentric paradigm, women are born for a husband; consequently, they must exist according to him; hence the dual sociopolitical process of ostracizing single women and establishing marriage as the sole space offering women a social status. Thus, the marriage market opposes a masculine subject against a feminine reduced to a symbolic good. Additionally, via repudiation, polygamy, violence, and the stigmatization of divorced or widowed women, marriage is a site for the control of women. As a result, to a sexually appropriated body and an economically exploited labor power, corresponds a social body doubly subject from a political point of view: to masculine power and to the androcentric state.

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Notes

1.
Chami-Kettani, op. cit., 69.
2.
Amel Grami, “Les vieilles filles ont une voix (Qad sara lil âwaniss saoute)”, Femmes marginalisées et insertion sociale, Travaux de colloque international March 10, 11, 12, 2010, Sadiqi dir., op. cit., 202.
3.
Martha Lauzen, “It’s a Man’s (Celluloid) World: On-Screen Representations of Female Characters in the Top 100 Films of 2013”, Center for the Study of Women in Television & Film, accessed August 7, 2016, http://womenintvfilm.sdsu.edu/files/2013_It’s_a_Man’s_World_Report.pdf
4.
Ibid.
5.
Ibid.
6.
Badia Hadj Nasser, Le voile mis à nu (Paris: Arcantère, 1985), 71.
7.
Tahr Ben Jelloun, Sur ma mère (Paris: Gallimard, 2008), 192.
8.
Siham Bouhlal, Princesse Amazigh (Neuilly-Sur-Seine: Al Manar, 2009), 47.
9.
Touria Hadraoui, Une enfance marocaine (Casablanca: Le FENNEC, 1998), 19.
10.
Terrab, op. cit., 58–59.
11.
Houria Rabeh, “Le corps féminin comme vecteur de nouvelles aspirations. Affirmations ou ambivalences ?”, Hakima Lebbar dir., Femmes et religions, points de vue de femmes du Maroc (Casablanca: La Croisée des Chemins, 2014), 57.
12.
Charles Baudelaire, Les fleurs du mal, 39, accessed August 7, 2016, http://www.kalliope.org/en/digt.pl?longdid=baudel1999070128
13.
Article 4 of the Family code: “Marriage is a legal contract by which a man and a woman mutually consent to unite in a common and enduring conjugal life. Its purpose is fidelity, virtue and the creation of a stable family, under the supervision of both spouses according to the provisions of this present code.”
14.
Hadouche, op. cit., 41–53.
15.
Asma Lamrabet, Femmes et hommes dans le Coran: quelle égalité? (Liban: Albouraq, 2012); Nadia Yassine, Toutes voiles dehors (Casablanca: Le FENNEC, 2003).
16.
Claude Lévi-Strauss, Les structures élémentaires de la parenté (Paris: P.U.F, 1949).
17.
Ibid., 64–65.
18.
Ibid., 178.
19.
Fouad Laroui, Le jour où Malika ne s’est pas mariée (Paris: Julliard, 2009), 9–10.
20.
Lévi-Strauss, op. cit., 86.
21.
Hmoudane, op. cit., 77.
22.
Catharine A. MacKinnon, “Crimes of War, Crimes of Peace”, On Human Rights, the Oxford Amnesty Lectures, Stephen Shute and Susan Hurley eds. (New York: Basic Books, 1993), 83–109.
23.
Choukri, op. cit., 40–44. There is a similar testimony in Jean Zaganiaris dans Le Périple des hommes amoureux (Casablanca: Casa-Express, 2015), 58–63.
24.
Articles 40 to 46 of the Family code.
25.
Dialmy, Critique de la masculinité au Maroc, op. cit., 162.
26.
Haut-commissariat au plan/Royaume du Maroc, Enquête nationale sur la prévalence de la violence à l’égard des femmes 2009, op. cit., 23.
27.
Boucetta, op. cit., 245–246.
28.
Fouad Laroui, De quel amour blessé (Paris: Julliard, 1999), 84.
29.
Article 10 of the Nationality code.
30.
Article 19, paragraph 3 of the Nationality code stipulates: “Loses Moroccan nationality: The Moroccan women who weds a foreigner, and acquires, by virtue of her marriage, the nationality of her husband and was authorized by decree prior to contracting her marriage, to renounce her Moroccan citizenship (…)”
31.
Article 316 of the Family code.
32.
Articles 348 to 354 of the Family code.
33.
Fadma Ait Mous et Yasmine Berriane, “Terres collectives et inégalités: le combat des soulaliyates”, Economia, accessed August 7, 2016, http://economia.ma/content/terres-collectives-et-inégalités-le-combat-des-soulaliyates
34.
“Abou Naïm accuse à nouveau Driss Lachgar d’apostasie”, accessed August 7, 2016, http://telquel.ma/2014/07/26/abou-naim-accuse-driss-lachgar-apostasie_1411330#comment1604743222
35.
Benchekroun, Oser vivre, op. cit. 81–82.
36.
Article 24 of the Family code stipulates: “Marital tutelage (wilaya) is the woman’s right, which she exercises upon reaching majority according to her choice and interests.”
37.
Dialmy, Critique de la masculinité au Maroc, op. cit., 69.
38.
Article 20 of the Family code stipulates: “The head of the family in charge of marriage may authorize the marriage of a girl or boy below the legal age of marriage…” If this provision appears to apply equally to girls and boys, in reality, it applies to girls in the overwhelming majority of cases.
39.
Articles 4, 10 and 11 of the Family code.
40.
Article 24 of the Family code.
41.
Haut-commissariat au plan, Démographie: genre et développement: aspects sociodémographiques et culturels de la différenciation sexuelle, op. cit., 154.
42.
Ibid.
43.
Saïd Mellouki, La transe (Kénitra: Boukili, 1997), 88–89.
44.
Article 114 of the Family code.
45.
Article 98 of the Family code.
46.
Mernissi explains that “al-khul” is in reference to the husband who “rejects,” that is to say renounces his rights over the woman as his wife. In Sexe idéologie Islam, op. cit., 56.
47.
Article 115 of the Family code.
48.
Benchekroun, Oser vivre, op. cit., 283.
49.
Article 13 of the Family code.
50.
Articles 26 to 33 of the Family code.
51.
Marcel Mauss, Essai sur le don: forme et raison de l’échange dans les sociétés archaïques (Paris: PUF, 2007), 75.
52.
Ibid., 219.
53.
Paola Tabet, trad. Josée Contrévas, La Grande arnaque. Sexualité des femmes et échange économico-sexuel (Paris: Harmattan, 2004), 47 & 67.
54.
Berrada-Berca, op. cit., 13–14.
55.
Benchkroun, Oser vivre, op. cit., 23–24.
56.
Tabet, op. cit.
57.
Dialmy, Critique de la masculinité au Maroc, op. cit., 157.
58.
Naamane-Guessous, Printemps et automne sexuels, puberté, ménopause, andropause au Maroc, op. cit., 284.
59.
Ibid., 285.
60.
For example, the resistance to the 1999 Plan d’action national pour l’intégration des femmes au développement.
61.
Ministère de la Justice et des Libertés (Royaume du Maroc), Statistiques des sections de la justice de la famille année 2011, Tableau 3: Comparaison des statistiques des actes de mariage entre les années 2010 et 2011, accessed August 9, 2016, http://adala.justice.gov.ma/production/statistiques/SJF/FR/30-1012%20VR%20Finale%20Statistique%20Francais.pdf
62.
Ibid., Tableau 7: Statistiques de mariage des mineur(e)s pendant l’année 2011.
63.
Souad Belhorma studied the different forms of violence suffered by wives who are minors in “‘Two months of marriage were sufficient to turn my life upside down’: early marriage as a form of gender-based violence”, Gender & Development 24.2 (2016): 219–230.
64.
Moha Ennaji, “Multiculturalism, Gender and Political Participation in Morocco”, Diogenes 57 n. 1 (2010): 50.
65.
Haut-commissariat au plan/Royaume du Maroc, Enquête nationale sur la prévalence de la violence à l’égard des femmes 2009, op. cit., 31.
66.
Mostafa Aboumalek, Qui épouse qui? Le mariage en milieu urbain (Casablanca: Afrique Orient, 1994), 197.
67.
Ibid.
68.
Chraibi, Un amour fractal, op. cit., 64.
69.
Mohamed Ali Mrabi, “Des données chocs sur les femmes battues”, L’Économiste (1 août 2016), 24.
70.
Article 79 of the Family code.
71.
Dialmy, Critique de la masculinité au Maroc, op. cit., 162–163.
72.
Sebti, op.cit., 61–62.
73.
Chraibi, Un amour fractal, op. cit., 128.
74.
Ibid.
75.
Article 418 of the Penal code, repealed in 2002, provided that “a husband who murders, injures, and/or beats his wife and her partner, after having caught them engaging in the act of adultery, is excused.”
76.
Article 420 of the Penal code stipulates that: “Injuries or a beating inflicted without intent to kill, even if death does occur, committed by a head of household against either of the guilty parties whom he has surprised in his house engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse, are excusable.”
77.
Kadri et al., “Mental Health of Moroccan Women, a Sexual Perspective”, op. cit., 200–201.
78.
The High-Commissioner to the Plan estimates that 6.4% and 7.6% of women are victims of conjugal and extra-marital violence respectively. However, these numbers do not reflect the full extent of the problem. As the High-Commissioner explains, available statistics related to female victims of violence are available only for those women who have reported incidents of violence to institutions like the courts and the police or gendarmerie. Haut-commissariat au plan/Royaume du Maroc, Enquête nationale sur la prévalence de la violence à l’égard des femmes 2009, op. cit., 5 and 31.
79.
Bouteina Bennani, “Entretien avec Fouzia Assouli, Présidente de la Fédération de la ligue démocratique des droits des femmes: des millions de femmes restent victimes de violence sans aucune protection”, accessed August 9, 2016, http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:TPMoh6h6w4J:www.lopinion.ma/def.asp%3Fcodelangue%3D23%26id_info%3D37533%26date_ar%3D2014-39+%26;cd=6%26;hl=fr%26;ct=clnk%26;gl=ca%26;client=safari
80.
Article 495 of the Penal code stipulates: “Whomever willfully hides or hinders a search for a married woman who has been abducted or lured away shall be liable to a prison term of five years and a fine ranging from 200 to 1.000 dirhams.”
81.
Yacoubi, Ma vie, mon cri, op. cit., 9–10.
82.
Chraibi, Un amour fractal, op. cit., 74.
83.
Siham Abdellaoui, Le bonheur se cache quelque part (Casablanca: Le FENNEC, 2006), 63–64.
84.
Tahar ben Jelloun, L’auberge des pauvres (Paris: Seuil, 1999), 290.
85.
Articles 129 to 137 of the Family code.
86.
Article 175 of the Family code stipulates: “The marriage of the custodial mother shall not result in the loss of her custody of the child in the following cases:
1. 1.
  If the child has not attained the age of 7 years; or if such a separation may inflict harm on him or her;
2. 2.
  If the child suffers from an illness or a handicap which renders his or her custody difficult for any person other than the mother;
3. 3.
  If her husband is in a degree of kinship relations precluding marriage, or is the child’s legal representative;
4. 4.
  If she is the child’s legal representative.
The marriage of the custodial mother shall exonerate the father from payment of the child’s accommodation expenses and the custodial salary, and the father shall remain responsible for payment of child support.
87.
Harakat, op. cit., 67.
88.
Florence Beaugé, “Maroc: le sondage interdit”, Le Monde, 3 August 2009.
89.
Salime, Between Feminism and Islam, Human Rights and Sharia Law in Morocco, op. cit., 114–116.

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Department of Politics and International Studies, Bishop’s University, Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada
Osire Glacier

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Glacier, O. (2017). A Negated Life. In: Femininity, Masculinity, and Sexuality in Morocco and Hollywood. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53285-1_4

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53285-1_4
Published: 25 April 2017
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-53284-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-53285-1
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