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A man could divorce his wife. remarry"her, divorce her for a second
time and remary her again. 'However. once he divorced her for the
third time. he could not remarry her again; in this case, the divorce
was final. However, if the divorced woman got married to anoiher'man. '
who was called a 'Muhalill, her'ex-husband could get married to her
after 'Muhalill had divorced her. ' However. this kind of practice was
not welcome.
Some Arabs used to divorce their wives without, allowing-them to
get married to other men because of jealousy. Some Arabs had taken
that so seriously, that whenever the divorced wife of one of them
tried to get married to someone else, he threatened her and her people.
In pre-Islamic times, a man used not to, pay a divorce settlement to
his divorced wife --even
in the final divorce.,
3
Moreover'. a"divorced
woman in that era had no interim period (i. e. that period that follows
a woman's'divorce and during which that woman'cannot get maktied to
another man. ) 'A woman in, paganism used'to marry akain immediately.
If'she was pregnant when she was being divorced and got married to another
man, when she gave birth, the baby was considered to be that of the new
husband, although the new husband was then considered to be the legal
guardian of the"baby, sometimes the baby might join his real father
when he grew up. as mentioned 'The mother of the tribe conceived by
one husband and was delivered of the bed of another. ' 5
38
2
Islam forbade this
custom and it considers that 'the child belongs to the bed' as we shall
discuss later.
1. Ibid. and al-Uu-6. P. 263
2, 'Ali. Vol. 5. P. 550
3. Ibid
4. Ibid
5. See Smith, P. 132
i