Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T18:08:00.416Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Calculating claims: Jewish and Muslim women navigating religion, economics and law in Canada

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 February 2012

Pascale Fournier
Pascale Fournier*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Law, Civil Law Section, University of Ottawa
*
[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article presents an empirical study of Jewish and Muslim women who go through divorce in Canada, drawing on a ‘left law and economics’ methodology. Religious law and family law have long been considered outside the market and, as a result, are more rarely accounted for in the law and economics literature. According to dominant narratives, religious family law is experienced by women either as an exceptional form of oppression or as a form of spiritual religious identity. In this article, I apply a ‘left law and economics’ approach to deconstruct these notions. On the basis of my socio-legal fieldwork with Jewish and Muslim women in three Canadian cities, I identify the background formal and informal legal rules, social norms and distributional practices that help produce asymmetric bargaining locations for women. I employ the economic language of costs/benefits to illustrate the ways in which religious parties bargain strategically upon divorce, although these market claims are surprisingly underrecognised by the legal system. Such empirical knowledge helps disenchant the idea that religious law is systematically used as punishing forces that make women worse off economically or morally inferior. It also allows for a distributive analysis which reveals how husbands and wives negotiate economic resources, desires and day-to-day decisions in all kinds of fair and unfair ways, flying in the face of conventional narratives surrounding women and religion.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Law in Context , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , March 2012 , pp. 47 - 72
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abdal-Rahim, Abdal-Rehim Abdal-Rahman (1996) ‘The Family and Gender Laws in Egypt during the Ottoman Period’ in Sonbol, Amira El Azhary (ed.), Women, the Family, and Divorce Laws in Islamic History. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 96–111.Google Scholar
Abu-Lughod, Lila (2002) ‘Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?: Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Its Others’, American Anthropologist 104(3): 783–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Abu-Odeh, Lama (2004) ‘Modernizing Muslim Family Law: The Case of Egypt’, Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law 37(4): 1043–1146.Google Scholar
Akerlof, George A. and Kranton, Rachel (2002) ‘Identity and Schooling: Some Lessons for the Economics of Education’, Journal of Economic Literature 40(4): 1167–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Akerlof, George A. and Kranton, Rachel (2005) ‘Identity and the Economics of Organizations’, Journal of Economic Perspectives 19(1): 9–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anisah, Hindun (2003) ‘Divorce’, in Nik, NorianiNik, Badlishah (ed.), Islamic Family Law and Justice for Muslim Women. Kuala Lumpur: Sisters in Islam, 31–42.Google Scholar
Ayres, Ian and Gertner, Robert (1989) ‘Filling Gaps in Incomplete Contracts: An Economic Theory of Default Rule’, Yale Law Journal 99(1): 87–130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bakht, Natasha (2006) ‘Were Muslim Barbarians Really Knocking on the Gates of Ontario? The Religious Arbitraion Controversy – Another Perspective’, Ottawa Law Review, 40th anniversary edn: 67–82.Google Scholar
Bakht, Natasha (2007) ‘Religious Arbitration in Canada: Protecting Women by Protecting Them from Religion’, Canadian Journal of Women and the Law 19(1): 119–44.Google Scholar
Becker, Gary S. (1993) A Treatise on the Family. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bitton, Yifat (2009) ‘Public Hierarchy and Private Harm: Tort Law as a Remedy for Gender Inequality in Israeli Family Law’ in Dresdner, Lisa and Peterson, Laurel S. (eds), (Re)Interpretations: The Shapes of Justice in Women's Experience. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 117–32.Google Scholar
Blecher-Prigat, Ayelet and Shmueli, Benhamin (2009) ‘The Interplay Between Tort Law and Religious Family Law: The Israeli Case’, Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law 26(2): 279–302.Google Scholar
Boyd, Marion (2004) Dispute Resolution in Family Law: Protecting Choice, Promoting Inclusion. Toronto: Government of Ontario. Available online: <www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca/english/about/pubs/boyd> (last accessed 12 August 2011).+(last+accessed+12+August+2011).>Google Scholar
Breitowitz, Irving A. (1993) Between Civil and Religious Law: The Plight of the Agunah in American Society. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Broyde, Michael J. (2001) Marriage, Divorce and the Abandoned Wife in Jewish Law: A Conceptual Understanding of the Agunah Problems in America. Jersey City, NJ: KTAV Publishing House Inc.Google Scholar
Campbell, Angela (2009) ‘Bountiful Voices’, Osgoode Hall Law Journal 47(2): 183–234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, Angela (2010) ‘Bountiful's Plural Marriages’, International Journal of Law in Context 6(4): 343–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carmit Yefet, Karin (2009) ‘Unchaining the Agunot: Enlisting the Israeli Constitution in the Service of Women's Marital Freedom’, Yale Journal of Law and Feminism 20(2): 441–504.Google Scholar
Chipman, John S. (1960) ‘The Foundations of Utility’, Econometrica 28(2): 193–224.Google Scholar
Cobin, David M. (1986) ‘Jewish Divorce and the Recalcitrant Husband – Refusal to Give a “Get” as Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress’, Journal of Law and Religion 4(2): 405–430.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cogel, Metin M. and Minkler, Lanse (2004) ‘Religious Identity and Consumption’, Review of Social Economy 62(3): 339–50.Google Scholar
Cohen, Lloyd (1987) ‘Marriage, Divorce, and Quasi Rents; or, “I Gave Him The Best Years of My Life”’, Journal of Legal Studies 16(2): 267–304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohn, Margit (2004) ‘Women, Religious Law and Religious Courts in Israel – The Jewish Case’, Retfaerd (Scandinavian Journal of Social Sciences) 27: 57–76.Google Scholar
Coulson, Noel J. (1964) A History of Islamic Law. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Darity, William A. Jr., Mason, Patrick L. and Stewart, James B. (2006) ‘The Economics of Identity: The Origin and Persistence of Racial Identity Norms’, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 60(3): 283–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dnes, Antony W. and Rowthorn, Robert (2010) The Law and Economics of Marriage and Divorce. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Donohue, John (1989) ‘The Law & Economics of Tort Law: The Profound Revolution’, Harvard Law Review 102(5): 1047–73.Google Scholar
Dorff, Elliott N. and Rosett, Arthur I. (1988) A Living Tree: The Roots and Growth of Jewish Law. Albany: Suny Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duggan, Anthony (2005) ‘Constructive Trusts from a Law and Economics Perspective’, University of Toronto Law Journal 55(2): 217–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
El Alami, Dawoud Sudqi and Hinchcliffe, Doreen (1996) Islamic Marriage and Divorce Laws of the Arab World. London: Kluwer Law International.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Emon, Anver (2009) ‘Islamic Law and the Canadian Mosaic: Politics, Jurisprudence, and Multicultural Accommodation’, Canadian Bar Review 87(2): 391–425.Google Scholar
Encarnación, José Jr. (1990) ‘Consumer Choice of Qualities’, Economica 57(225): 63–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epstein, Louis M. (2005) The Jewish Marriage Contract: A Study of the Status of the Woman in Jewish Law. Clark, NJ: Lawbook Exchange.Google Scholar
Esposito, John L. (1982) Women in Muslim Family Law. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.Google Scholar
Esposito, John L. and Delong-Bas, Natana (2001) Women in Muslim Family Law. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.Google Scholar
Estin, Ann Laquer (2004) ‘Embracing Tradition: Pluralism in American Family Law’, Maryland Law Review 63(3): 540–604.Google Scholar
Estin, Ann Laquer (2009) ‘Unofficial Family Law’, Iowa Law Review 94(2): 449–80.Google Scholar
Fang, Hanming and Loury, Glenn C. (2005) ‘Toward an Economic Theory of Dysfunctional Identity’ in Christopher B., Barrett (ed.), The Social Economics of Poverty. New York: Routledge, 12–55.Google Scholar
Farrow, Trevor C. W. (2006) ‘Re-Framing the Sharia Arbitration Debate’, Constitutional Forum 15(2): 79–86.Google Scholar
Fishbayn, Lisa (2008) ‘Gender, Multiculturalism and Dialogue: The Case of Jewish Divorce’, Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 21(1): 71–96.Google Scholar
Fournier, Pascale (2010a) ‘Flirting with God in Western Secular Courts: Mahr in the West’, International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family 24(1): 1–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fournier, Pascale (2010b) Muslim Marriage in Western Courts: Lost in Transplantation. Farnham: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Fournier, Pascale (2010c) ‘Courtiser Dieu devant les tribunaux occidentaux’, Canadian Journal of Law and Society/Revue canadienne droit et société 25(2): 167–93.Google Scholar
Fournier, Pascale (2011) ‘Borders and Crossroads: Comparative Perspectives on Minorities and Conflicts of Laws’, Emory International Law Review 25(2): 987–1006.Google Scholar
Fournier, Pascale (forthcoming 2012) ‘Halacha, the ‘Jewish State’ and the Canadian Agunah: Comparative Law at the Intersection of Religious and Secular Orders', Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fournier, Pascale, Mcdougall, Pascal and Lichtsztral, Merissa (forthcoming 2012) ‘Secular Rights and Religious Wrongs? Family Law, Religion and Jewish Women in Israel’, William and Mary Journal of Women and the Law 18(2).Google Scholar
Fyzee, A. A. A. (1974) Outlines of Muhammadan Law, 4th edn. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Garupa, Nuno (2009) Criminal Law and Economics. Northampton: Edward Elgar Publishers.Google Scholar
Gaudreault-Desbiens, Jean-François (2005) ‘The Limits of Private Justice? The Problems of the State Recognition of Arbitral Awards in Family and Personal Status Disputes in Ontario’, World Arbitration and Mediation Report 16(1): 18–31.Google Scholar
Gilboa, Itzhak and Schmeidler, David (1997) ‘Cumulative Utility Consumer Theory’, International Economic Review 38(4): 737–61.Google Scholar
Gomez, Fernando (2006) ‘The Unfair Commercial Practices Directive: A Law and Economics Perspective’, European Review of Contract Law 2(1): 4–34.Google Scholar
Greenberg-Kobrin, Michelle (1999) ‘Civil Enforceability of Religious Prenuptial Agreements’, Columbia Journal of Law and Social Problems 32(4): 359–99.Google Scholar
Guthartz, Stacey A. (2004) ‘Domestic Violence and the Jewish Community’, Michigan Journal of Gender & Law 11: 27–62.Google Scholar
Hacohen, Aviad and Greenberg, Blu (2004) Tears of the Oppressed: An Examination of the Agunah Problem: Background and Halakhic Sources. Jersey City, NJ: KTAV Publishing House.Google Scholar
Halley, Janet (2011) ‘What is Family Law? A Geneology, Part I’, Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities 23: 1–109Google Scholar
Halley, Janet and Rittich, Kerry (2010) ‘Critical Directions in Comparative Family Law: Genealogies and Contemporary Studies of Family Law Exceptionalism’, The American Journal of Comparative Law 58(4): 753–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halperin-Kaddari, Ruth (2000–2001) ‘Women, Religion and Multiculturalism in Israel’, UCLA Journal of International Law and Foreign Affairs 5(2): 339–66.Google Scholar
Halperin-Kaddari, Ruth (2004) Women in Israel: A State of Their Own. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Hartman, Raymond S., Doane, Michael J. and Woo, Chi-Keung (1991) ‘Consumer Rationality and the Status Quo’, Quarterly Journal of Economics 106(1): 141–62.Google Scholar
Haut, Irwin H. (1983) Divorce in Jewish Law and Life. New York: Sepher-Hermon Press.Google Scholar
Hoodfar, Homa (1996) ‘Circumventing Legal Limitation: Mahr and Marriage Negotiation in Egyptian Low-Income Communities’, in Homa, Hoodfar (ed.), Shifting Boundaries in Marriage and Divorce in Muslim Communities. Montpellier: Women Living Under Muslim Laws, 121–42.Google Scholar
Jacobs, Louis and De Vries, Benjamin (2007) ‘Halakhah’, in Berenbaum, Michael and Skolnik, Fred (eds), Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd edn. Detroit: Macmillan Reference, 251–58.Google Scholar
Jolls, Christine (1997) ‘Contracts as Bilateral Commitments: A New Perspective on Contract Modification’, Journal of Legal Studies 26(1): 203–238.Google Scholar
Joseph, Norma B. (2005) ‘Jewish Law and Gender’, in Keller, Rosemary and Radford Reuther, Rosemary (eds), Encyclopedia of Women and Religion. Indiana: Indiana University Press: 576–88.Google Scholar
Kandiyoti, Deniz (1988) ‘Bargaining with Patriarchy’, Gender and Society 2(3): 274–90.Google Scholar
Kaplan, Yehiel S. (2004) ‘Enforcement of Divorce Judgements by Imprisonment: Principles of Jewish Law’, Jewish Law Annual 15: 57–145.Google Scholar
Kaplow, Louis (1986) ‘An Economic Analysis of Legal Transitions’, Harvard Law Review 99(3): 509–617.Google Scholar
Kaplow, Louis (1996) ‘Optimal Distribution and the Family’, Scandinavian Journal of Economics 98(1): 75–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaplow, Louis and Shavell, Steven M. (2004) Contracting. New York: Foundation Press.Google Scholar
Kennedy, Duncan (1982) ‘Distributive and Paternalist Motives in Contract and Tort Law, With Special Reference to Compulsory Terms and Unequal Bargaining Power’, Maryland Law Review 41(4): 563–658.Google Scholar
Kennedy, Duncan (1992) ‘Sexual Abuse, Sexy Dressing, and the Eroticization of Domination’, New England Law Review 26(4): 1309–394.Google Scholar
Kleefeld, John C. and Kennedy, Amanda (2008) ‘“A Delicate Necessity”: Bruker v. Marcovitz and the Problem of Jewish Divorce”, Canadian Journal of Family Law 24(2): 205–282.Google Scholar
Korteweg, Anna C. (2008) ‘The Sharia Debate in Ontario: Gender, Islam and Representation of Muslim Women's Agency’, Gender and Society 22(4): 434–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kotiswaran, Prabha (2011) Dangerous Sex, Invisible Labor: Sex Work and the Law in India. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Landes, William M. and Posner, Richard (1987) The Economic Structure of Tort Law. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leckey, Robert (2008) ‘What Is Left of Pelech?’, in Jamie, Cameron (ed.), Reflections on the Legacy of Justice Bertha Wilson. Markham: LexisNexis Canada, 103–129.Google Scholar
Lee, Ian B. (2008) ‘Can Economics Justify the Constitutional Guarantee of Freedom of Expression?’, Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 21(2): 355–98.Google Scholar
Macfarlane, Julie (forthcoming 2012) ‘Practicing an “Islamic Imagination”: Islamic Divorce in North America’, in Korteweg, A. and Selby, J. (eds), Debating Sharia: Islam, Gender Politics and Family Law Arbitration. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Maghniyyah, Muhammad Jawad (1995) The Five Schools of Islamic Law. Qum: Anssariyan.Google Scholar
Manji, Irshad (2004) The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith. New York: St. Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Mashhour, Amira (2005) ‘Islamic Law and Gender Equality – Could There be a Common Ground?: A Study of Divorce and Polygamy in Sharia Law and Contemporary Legislation in Tunisia and Egypt’, Human Rights Quarterly 27(2): 562–96.Google Scholar
Mclachlin, Beverley (1990) ‘Spousal Support: Is It Fair to Apply New-Style Rules to Old-Style Marriages?’, Canadian Journal of Family Law 9: 131–42.Google Scholar
Michael, Robert T. and Becker, Gary S. (1973) ‘On the New Theory of Consumer Behavior’, Swedish Journal of Economics 75(4): 378–96.Google Scholar
Mielziner, Moshe (1987) The Jewish Law of Marriage and Divorce and its Relation to the Law of the State. Littletown, CO: Fred B. Rothman.Google Scholar
Mnookin, Robert H. and Kornhauser, Lewis (1979) ‘Bargaining in the Shadow of the Law: The Case of Divorce’, Yale Law Journal 88(5): 950–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moghissi, Haideh (1999) Feminism and Islamic Fundamentalism: The Limits of Postmodern Analysis. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Nasir, Jamal J. (2002) The Islamic Law of Personal Status. New York: Kluwer Law International.Google Scholar
Nichols, Joel A. (2007) ‘Multi-Tiered Marriage: Ideas and Influences from New York and Louisiana to the International Community’, Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law 40(1): 135–96.Google Scholar
Olsen, Frances (1983) ‘The Family and the Market: A Study of Ideology and Legal Reform’, Harvard Law Review 96(7): 1497–578.Google Scholar
Peletz, Michael G. (2002) Islamic Modern: Religious Courts and Cultural Politics in Malaysia. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Pollak, Robert A. (2003) ‘Gary Becker's Contributions to Family and Household Economics’, Review of Economics of the Household 1(1–2): 111–41.Google Scholar
Posner, Richard (2004) ‘Law and Economics in Common-Law, Civil-Law, and Developing Nations’, Ratio Juris 17(1): 66–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rahnema, Saeed (2006) ‘The Perils of Faith-Based Multiculturalism: The Case of Shari'a in Canada’, Canadian Dimension 40(1): 21–23.Google Scholar
Razack, Sherene H. (2007) ‘The Sharia Law Debate in Ontario: The Modernity/Postmodernity Distinction in Legal Efforts to Protect Women from Culture’, Feminist Legal Studies 15(1): 3–32.Google Scholar
Razack, Sherene H. (2008) Casting Out: The Eviction of Muslims from Western Law and Politics. Toronto: Toronto University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reiss, Jonathan and Broyde, Michael J. (2005) ‘Prenuptial Agreements in Talmudic, Medieval, and Modern Jewish Thought’, in Michael, J. Broyde and Michael, Ausubel (eds), Mariage, Sex, and Family. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 192–213.Google Scholar
Romney, Judith (1982) ‘The Status of Women in Jewish and Islamic Marriage and Divorce Law’, Harvard Women's Law Journal 5: 1–34.Google Scholar
Sarat, Austin and Kearns, Thomas R. (1993) Law in Everyday Life. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Schacht, Joseph (1982) An Introduction to Islamic Law. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Schacht, Joseph (2000) ‘Talak’, in Bearman, P. J. et al. (eds), Encyclopedia of Islam, Vol. 10. Leiden: Brill, 151–55.Google Scholar
Schwartz, Alan (2004) ‘The Law and Economics Approach to Contract Theory’, in Wittman, Donald A. (ed.), Economic Analysis of the Law: Selected Readings. Boston: Blackwell, 141–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shachar, Ayelet (2005) ‘Religion, State and the Problem of Gender: New Modes of Citizenship and Governance in Diverse Societies’, McGill Law Journal 50(1): 49–88.Google Scholar
Shachar, Ayelet (2008) ‘Privatizing Diversity: A Cautionary Tale from Religious Arbitration in Family Law’, Theoretical Inquiries in Law 9(2): 573–608.Google Scholar
Shavell, Steven M. (2004) Foundations of Economic Analysis of Law. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Shavell, Steven M. (2006) ‘Specific Performance Versus Damages for Breach of Contract: An Economic Analysis’, Texas Law Review 84(4): 831–76.Google Scholar
Stopler, Gila (2003) ‘Countenancing the Oppression of Women: How Liberals Tolerate Religious and Cultural Practices that Discriminate Against Women’, Columbia Journal of Gender and Law 12(1): 154–221.Google Scholar
Syrtash, John (1992) Religion and Culture in Canadian Family Law. Toronto: Butterworths.Google Scholar
Trachtman, Joel P. (2008) The Economic Structure of International Law. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Trebilcock, Michael J. (2007) ‘The Lessons and Limits of Law and Economics’, in Pierre, Noreau (ed.), In the Eye of the Beholder. Montreal: Thémis, 113–63.Google Scholar
Trebilcock, Michael J. and Elliot, Steven (2001) ‘The Scope and Limits of Legal Paternalism: Altruism and Coercion in Family Financial Arrangements’, in Benson, Peter (ed.), The Theory of Contract Law. New York: Cambridge University Press, 45–85.Google Scholar
Trebilcock, Michael J. and Keshvani, Rosemin (1991) ‘The Role of Private Ordering in Family Law: A Law and Economics Perspective’, University of Toronto Law Journal 41(4): 533–90.Google Scholar
Tsoukala, Philomila (2007) ‘Gary Becker, Legal Feminism, and the Costs of Moralizing Care’, Columbia Journal of Gender and Law 16(2): 357–429.Google Scholar
Tucker, Judith E. (1985) Women in Nineteenth-Century Egypt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Van Praagh, Shauna (1996) ‘The Chutzpah of Chasidism’, Canadian Journal of Law and Society 11(2): 193–216.Google Scholar
Van Praagh, Shauna (1999a) ‘Faith, Belonging, and the Protection of “Our” Children’, Windsor Yearbook of Access of Justice 17: 154–203.Google Scholar
Van Praagh, Shauna (1999b) ‘The Education of Religious Children: Families, Communities and Constitutions’, Buffalo Law Review 47(3): 1343–96.Google Scholar
Wolf, Benjamin C. (2009) ‘Resolving the Conflict between Jewish and Secular State Law’, Hofstra Law Review 37(4): 1171–201.Google Scholar
Wani, Afzal M. (1995) The Islamic Law on Maintenance of Women, Children, Parents and Other Relatives: Classical Perspectives and Modern Legislations from India and Muslim Countries. New Delhi: Qazi.Google Scholar