A television series tackling polygamy and broadcast during Ramadan has sparked controversy in Tunisia, a pioneering Arab country on women’s rights, where multiple unions have been banned for decades.
Telling a rosary, Wannas, the main character of the series “Baraa” (Innocence, editor’s note), claims, from the third episode, to unite with a second wife. In front of his wife and children, he claims to have the right to the name of Sharia, Islamic law, which is, he says, “above all other laws”.
Broadcast on the private channel El Hiwar Ettounsi after the breaking of the fast since the beginning of Ramadan, the holy month of Muslims, the series sparked controversy by addressing two practices prohibited by Tunisian law: polygamy and religious marriage is known as “orfi”.
“There is no question of bringing these questions up for discussion”, since the Code of Personal Status (CSP), promulgated on August 13, 1956, by former President Habib Bourguiba, “has decided on these practices”, denounced in a communicated the Free Destourian Party (PDL), an anti-Islamist formation.
The CSP, enacted five months after the country’s independence, is groundbreaking legislation that granted Tunisian women unprecedented rights in the Arab world. He abolished polygamy, prohibited repudiation, and instituted judicial divorce.
Only civil marriage is recognized by law.
“Social hypocrisy”
For the PDL, “these crimes” (polygamy and customary marriage, editor’s note), punishable by one year’s imprisonment, have reappeared in Tunisian society since the coming to power in 2011 of the Islamist-inspired party Ennahdha.
The PDL, the sworn enemy of Ennahdha whose dissolution it calls for, warns against “an attack on the dignity of women in the event that obscurantist forces are in decision-making positions”.
Polygamy and customary marriage are “forms of violence against women” and their evocation “normalizes the culture of impunity”, assures the organization Aswat Nissa (Voice of Women), on its Facebook page.
This NGO requested the intervention of the High Authority for Tunisian Audiovisuals (Haica), a body that controls media content.
The sociologist Mohamed Jouili โโwants to reassure him: the series “is a work of dramatic art which does not systematically reflect Tunisian society”.
It provides instruments for debating social issues, “talking about polygamy or orfi marriage” but “in no way threatens the achievements of women”, he told AFP.
In his eyes, the controversy illustrates rather “a social hypocrisy”, because “we agree to discuss these phenomena in private, between friends, but we are indignant and we get carried away when we mention them in public”.
The sociologist denounces “a stupid instrumentalization to gain points on the political level”.
The “exaggerated reactions against this series aim to make people think that everything related to the Muslim religion is retrograde,” she told AFP Nadia Abdelhak, a 28-year-old civil servant.
These questions, which are not usually addressed, remain taboo subjects, yet these are phenomena that exist in Tunisia, assures Foued Ghorbali, another sociologist.
“A subject of debate”
“A dramatic art does not have the role of giving a good image of society, it exposes a point of view or social issues that can be a subject of debate”, he explains.
“In Tunisia, some are for concubinage and others approve of customary marriage,” adds Mr. Ghorbali, for whom this controversy reflects “an ideological conflict between conservatives and those who present themselves as progressives”.
After the rise of Islamist movements following the fall of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s regime, according to the expert, “religious marriage has spread in university circles”, particularly among students who resort to it to live in couples with religious validation.
Tunisian actors Fethi Haddaoui and Ahlam Fekih during the filming of the “Baraa” series in Tunis, December 21, 2021, Achraf OUERGHEMMI AFP
The freedom of expression acquired after the 2011 Revolution even encouraged some to call for the return of polygamy, including a group of women who had organized a demonstration in early 2018.
According to statistics from the Ministry of Justice, 1,718 “or” marriage cases were examined by the country’s courts between 2015 and 2020.