Sociolegal Status of Males and Females of morocco

In the legal sphere, the rights of the individual man or woman are governed by the penal code, the code of commerce, and the code of family law (mudawana). Morocco’s penal and commercial codes are identical in scope, with men and women sharing the same rights and obligations. On the contrary, the code of family law, which regulates man-woman relations in the domains of marriage, repudiation, filiation, custody of the children, guardianship, and inheritance, is far from being equitable (Statut du Code, 1996).

[A first step in reform of the mudawana came in the early 1980s, when the Union de l’Action Feminin and other groups gathered over a million signatures in support of a petition urging the King to reform the family law regulating marriage, divorce, inheritance, child custody, and polygamy. There is still no central office to deal with alimony or child support. The new code is known as the Statut du Code Personnel “Mudawana” (1996) (Fernea 1998:106, 113, 120). (Editor)]

If the penal and commercial codes are inspired by French law, the Moroccan code of family law is inspired by the Chariâ (Islamic Law), especially that of the Malékite rite. Although the Chariâ accepts polygamy with up to four legitimate wives, Moroccan law adopts some restrictions with the view of limiting the practice of polygamy, and poses conditions of equality in the treatment of the co-spouses. Polygamy is to be avoided when a disparity is to be feared (Article 30.1).

On the other hand, Moroccan women still have not been able to reach a real emancipation and autonomy vis-à-vis men, despite the important changes observed in our modern society. The Moroccan woman still commonly estimates the man to be superior to her, tolerates work of a temporary nature, judges having children, especially boys, as all important for inheritance, thinks that virginity is of major importance, and accords a great place to the ceremony of marriage. The woman in our society is a woman in evolution, but she remains linked to the group (Amir 1988; Kacha 1996; Moussaid 1992). This woman is opposed to the total transformation of those who might lead us toward an insecure situation. This opposition is because of internal resistance that is linked to the educational and external schemas in the measure where the social milieu brakes this desire for change (Amir 1988; Kacha 1996).

On March 12, 2000, two rival demonstrations by several hundred thousand Moroccans bore testimony to the transitional tensions and evolution evident in our country. The issue of both demonstrations was a government plan for a variety of social and human rights reforms proposed by the new King, Mohammed VI, who came to the throne after the death of his father, King Hassan II, in July 1999. Among other reforms, the government plan would fully replace with a court divorce the practice of repudiation, in which the husband can divorce his wife by a triple verbal declaration. The reform would also provide for equal division of money and property in a divorce, and support a literacy program for rural Moroccan women, over 80 percent of whom are illiterate. In the capital, Rabat, 200,000 to 300,000 members and representatives of women’s groups, human rights movements, and political parties ended their march supporting the reform with a concert. In Casablanca, at least 200,000 men and women marching in separate columns - some claimed twice that number - denounced the reform (Associated Press 2000).

[In terms of judiciary power, Morocco is far ahead of Egypt, with 20 percent of its judges being women, compared with no Egyptian female judges. On the other hand, whereas Egyptian President Sadat appointed 35 women to his country’s Parliament in 1981, Moroccan women had to wait 37 years following independence to have two women elected to the Moroccan Parliament (Fernea 1998:117).

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Character of Gender Roles of morocco

Character of Gender Roles

The traditional family structure remains very faithfully attached to the archaic patriarchal scheme. The father is, in general, a patriarch who inspires respect and to whom one owes obedience and acknowledgment. The mother is the housekeeper “wife-mother” who does everything. She is the one who makes the decisions in the social sphere. But she prepares her own strategy for managing her ecosystem by imposing a strong personality in the household. She reveals herself to be more conservative than the man. When a woman becomes a mother, she is always considered a potential danger, because she is perceived as having a devastating effect on the man. However, our Islamic religion adopts an ambivalent attitude toward women. On one side, she is considered as being more wily than Iblis (Satan) whom she incarnates in our collective unconscious; on the other side, the Hadith (Words of the Prophet) considers woman as a simple being of spirit, whose faith is incomplete. This notion is largely predominant in the rural population, whereas city women have begun to rebel against this state of things (Moussaid 1992; Naamane 1990). [In terms of Moroccan cultural change, there are continuing tensions between the people of the magzken in the urban organized government and the people of the rural and tribal bled. These tensions often focus on the differences between modern Western sexual and marital values and those espoused by the tribal and rural cultures (Fernea 1998:63).

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A Brief Historical Perspective in morocco

A Brief Historical Perspective in morocco

Morocco is rich in Paleolithic remains, particularly in parts of North Africa and the Sahara, which were populated until the Neolithic era. The people who settled in the region soon after that were probably natives of Europe and Asia. They became the ancestors of today’s Berbers. In the seventh century BCE, the Phoenicians laid the foundations of commerce on the Mediterranean coast of North Africa at sites having Berber names that became the great ports of Tingi (Tangier), Melilia (Russadir), and Casablanca. The conquest of Carthage by the Roman Empire in the first century BCE assured Roman domination of the entire African Mediterranean coastline to the Straits of Gibraltar. From 25 to 23 BCE, Juba II, a Berber sovereign, administered the Berber kingdom of Mauritania (Algeria, Morocco, and a part of Mauritania). Around 42 CE, the emperor Claudius I annexed the whole empire of Mauritania to the Roman Empire. In 429, Morocco underwent the invasion of the Vandals. The Byzantine general Bélisaire regained the region in 533. After the conversion of the emperor Constantine I the Great in the fourth century, Christianity expanded in the Roman regions.

It appears that Islamic troops reached the Atlantic Ocean in 681 under the command of Oqba Ibn Nafii. The real conquest started later on, between 705 and 707, under the direction of Moussa Ibn Nousair. The Muslim establishment was in the meantime long and difficult. Many Muslim dynasties, claiming Arabic origins for religious reasons or prestige, ruled in various areas of the country. In 788, Idriss I, descendant of Ali, son-in-law of the Prophet, founded the dynasty of the Idrissides. It is from this age that dates the founding of the city of Fès, which became an important religious and cultural center of the Islamic world under Idriss II. The rigorist Almoravide warriors of Islam went on to dominate the region beginning in 1062, the date at which they founded Marrakech as the crossroads of commercial routes between the Arab world and the Sahara. A new reform movement, the Almohades (the Unities), launched by Ibn Toumart in the first half of the twelfth century, put an end to the Almoravide empire in 1147, marking the triumph of the seated Berbers of the anti-Atlas under the aegis of Abd Al-Moumen (1130-1163). The Almohades exercised their authority over what is currently Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and part of Portugal and Spain.

In 1269, the Mérinides, of the Arabic Berbers, took over the throne, but they could not maintain the unity of the North African empire of the Almohades. During the reconquest of Spain, which exiled the Arabs and the Jews, the great majority of Spanish Muslims found refuge in Morocco they took over. In 1415, Ceuta (Sebta) was occupied by the Portuguese. In 1497, Melilia fell to the Spanish. The intrusions of the Europeans provoked the rise of the Beni Saâd (or Saâdiens), who became master of the country in 1554. Moroccan Saâdiens, aided by Moorish and Jewish refugees from Spain, created a prosperous and unified country. In this period, Moroccan architecture and arts flourished. In 1664, Maulay Rachid founded the Alaouite dynasty, which still reigns to this day in Morocco. The Alaouite dynasty knew its apogee under the sultan Moulay Ismail (1672-1727), the builder of the city of Meknès. His reign was followed by a long period of family rivalries. At the end of the eighteenth century, only the northern third of Morocco remained under the administration of the sultan.

On March 30, 1912, the sultan recognized the French protectorate. Spain, for its part, assumed control of the north of Morocco, from the enclave of Ifni (southwest) and from the Moroccan Sahara (west). The occupation of the country was not total until 1934. After World War II, the Moroccan nationalist resistance forced independence in 1956, opening the era of the constitutional monarchy in Morocco. The last vestiges of European colonialism persisted until the recent past. The enclave of Ifni was not returned to Morocco until 1964, and the Moroccan Sahara was not recovered until 1976 at the end of a popular nationalist march called the “Green March.” Two other enclaves, small ports situated on the Mediterranean coast west of Tangier, Ceuta and Melilia, are still occupied by Spain.



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