In Iraq, Marrying a Girl Takes Less Paperwork Than Leaving a Husband
Since 2025, Iraqi couples can trade the civil family law for a Shia religious code. It sets marriage at puberty, accepts weddings with no witness and no register, hands children to their fathers at seven, and lets a woman divorce only if she is abandoned, unpaid or repeatedly beaten. Iraqi women fought to make the reform less terrible. Six months later, parliament made it worse.
