tdaxp

"'Pleasure marriages' regain popularity in Iraq," by Rick Jervis, USA Today, 4 May 2005, http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2005-05-04-pleasure-marriage_x.htm (from Democratic Underground).

When the future Islamic Republic has more personal liberty than the United States... . *insert snappy line*

In the days when it could land him in jail, Rahim Al-Zaidi would whisper details of his muta'a only to his closest confidants and the occasional cousin. Never his wife.

Al-Zaidi hopes to soon finalize his third muta'a, or "pleasure marriage," with a green-eyed neighbor. This time, he talks about it openly and with obvious relish. Even so, he says, he probably still won't tell his wife.

Most Shiite scholars today consider it halal, or religiously legal. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the highest religious authority in Shiite Islam, sets conditions and obligations for muta'a on his Web site. ("A woman with whom temporary marriage is contracted is not entitled to share the conjugal bed of her husband and does not inherit from him ...")

Pleasure marriages were outlawed under Saddam Hussein but have begun to flourish again. The contracts, lasting anywhere from one hour to 10 years, generally stipulate that the man will pay the woman in exchange for sexual intimacy. Now some Iraqi clerics and women's rights activists are complaining that the contracts have become less a mechanism for taking care of widows than an outlet for male sexual desires.

...

Sunni scholars fear that giving official sanction to pleasure marriages — many of which are only verbal agreements between the couple — are little more than legalized prostitution that could lead to a collapse of moral values, especially among young people.

...

Women's rights activists are concerned. Salama Al-Khafaji, a Shiite lawmaker who supports the concept of sharia law but advocates for women's rights, calls the re-emergence of muta'a an "unhealthy phenomenon."