’You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours’

[Posted 4:11 PM by James Panero]

For the America Alone file, by now many of us have heard about the case of a German judge who refused to grant a German woman of Morrocan origin an accelerated divorce from her abusive husband, on the grounds that the abuse of one’s wife is acceptable in Muslim culture. The German judge even quoted the Koran’s defense of domestic abuse in the verdict. From Der Spiegel:

The case seems simply too strange to be true. A 26-year-old mother of two wanted to free herself from what had become a miserable and abusive marriage. The police had even been called to their apartment to separate the two -- both of Moroccan origin -- after her husband got violent in May 2006. The husband was forced to move out, but the terror continued: Even after they separated, the spurned husband threatened to kill his wife.

A quick divorce seemed to be the only solution -- the 26-year-old was unwilling to wait the year between separation and divorce mandated by German law. She hoped that as soon as they were no longer married, her husband would leave her alone. Her lawyer, Barbara Becker-Rojczyk agreed and she filed for immediate divorce with a Frankfurt court last October. They both felt that the domestic violence and death threats easily fulfilled the "hardship" criteria necessary for such an accelerated split.

In January, though, a letter arrived from the judge adjudicating the case. The judge rejected the application for a speedy divorce by referring to a passage in the Koran that some have controversially interpreted to mean that a husband can beat his wife. It’s a supposed right which is the subject of intense debate among Muslim scholars and clerics alike."The exercise of the right to castigate does not fulfill the hardship criteria as defined by Paragraph 1565 (of German federal law)," the daily Frankfurter Rundschau quoted the judge’s letter as saying. It must be taken into account, the judge argued, that both man and wife have Moroccan backgrounds.

"The right to castigate means for me: the husband can beat his wife," Becker-Rojczyk said, interpreting the judge’s verdict.

The verdict is shocking, and speaks once again to the weak will of contemporary German culture.

Armavirumque would therefore like to offer up another source text for adjudicating Western law in the face of foreign customs. It comes by way of Sir Charles Napier (1782-1853) and his famous response to colonial Indian who were seeking to pursue their native ritual of suttee, the live immolation of a wife after the death of her husband, while under British authority:

"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

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