The Silence of the Bride: A Fatimid marriage contract on silk

Abstract

Marriage contracts and divorce deeds are of particular importance for historians, as they provide clues about both social practices and gender relations. In this article, we offer an edition of a noteworthy document from Dār al-āthār al-islāmiyya in Kuwait, which, beyond its remarkable aesthetic quality, offers a testimony to marriage and divorce practices in a bourgeois milieu of the Egyptian capital during the late Fatimid period. More than a micro-history, this document adds a new piece to the picture of matrimonial dynamics in medieval Egypt, which were often more subtle than previously understood. Patriarchal authority did not prevent a father from deploying all sorts of strategies to protect his daughter in marriage and guarantee her a certain amount of autonomy. In accordance with some jurists’ recommendations, which were based on a Prophetic hadith, the father did not marry off his daughter without first obtaining her tacit permission. Finally, the document preserves the memory of a marital crisis in the seventh year of marriage, during which the husband repudiated his wife before rapidly taking her back.