Page:The evolution of marriage and of the family ... (IA evolutionofmarri00letorich).pdf/256

 dower she brought with her; that the husband should have four months' grace to retract his decision; that if the repudiated wife is suckling an infant, the husband, or, in his default, the next heir, should supply her needs during the two years that the suckling should last.

The Koran orders repudiated wives not to re-marry before three menstrual periods, not to dissimulate their pregnancy, "if they believe in God and in the day of judgment;" and in the last case it advises the husbands to take them back. Lastly, the law of Mahomet encourages amicable arrangements, and these by money payments between ill-assorted couples; it authorises the husband to sell a divorce to his wife for a cession, with her consent, of a portion of her dowry. This is what the texts, which are both legal and sacred, declare: this, then, is the theory. We will now see what is the practice as regards repudiation and divorce in Algeria at the present time.

There are three graduated formulas of repudiation: first, the discontented husband says simply to the wife, "Go away," and if he has only said it once or twice, he may retract his decision; second, but if he has said, "Thou art to me as one dead, or as the flesh of swine," it is forbidden to take back the repudiated wife until she has been married to another, and then repudiated or left a widow; lastly, there is a formula so solemn that it entails a separation for ever; it is this, "Let thy back be turned on me henceforth, like the back of my mother."

Any one of these senseless reasons, which have often the force of law with unenlightened races, can be set aside, and the repudiation counted null when it has been pronounced during a critical period of the woman. The woman with child, on the contrary, can be repudiated, but she has a right to an "allowance during pregnancy." Actual custom also admits voluntary divorce, at the proposal of the wife, for a redemption paid by her to her master. Sometimes the initiative comes from the husband, who, knowing that his wife desires her liberty, says to her, "I repudiate