Page:Islam, Turkey, and Armenia, and How They Happened.djvu/155

Rh it. Hence, the only possible way to get rid of a bad husband is to irritate him until he asks for a divorce. There is one point favorable to women—that a husband can not get a divorce unless he first pays the dowry he promised to his wife, according to their wealth and rank, differing from ten to one thousand dollars, or more. The "sheri," the legal branch of the government which attends to marriages and divorces, takes great care on this point to secure and protect the wife's right. A Mohametan may, and often does, marry and divorce the same wife three times by usual transactions of the "sheri" and by the consent of the woman, but not the fourth time unless the woman is married by another man and also divorced by his free will. If a thrice divorced wife is not already married by another man, and if both parties desire a re-union in marriage, the demand of the law is to find another man to marry this woman and divorce her legally, which the poor or the crazy people will do for the sake of money. In some instances, however, the man who was thought crazy proves himself to be so sane as to keep the wife for himself or demands a very large sum for the desired divorce, for which the law does not force him. If a wife be guilty of impurity in matrimony her husband has the right to have her imprisoned by the government for life, or, as the Koran says, "until she finds some divine help to make her escape." The children born of a divorced wife can never be deprived of the right to inherit their father's property, even if they are allowed to live with their mother, in which case