A 28-year-old Egyptian newlywed woman, is seeking a divorce after only two weeks of marriage because her husband does all of the household chores. Her husband, 31, also runs a successful clothing store, where he employs several staff members and is therefore able to spend most of his time at home. Samar claims that he spends all of that time cleaning and rearranging furniture and that she can no longer handle living with him.
The woman, known only as Samar M., claims that her husband, Mohammad S., is acting like a housewife, and she has grown bored of him. Not only does he do all of the chores, but he refuses to allow her to help at all. She eventually confronted her husband but said that he responded by saying that if she wanted to live in his house, she had to follow his rules.
“We’ve been married for just two weeks, I’ve known and loved him for over 2 years but I hate living with him and can no longer handle his actions,” Samar told Egyptian news website Masrawy.
When Samar told her mother-in-law about her husband’s actions, the woman was surprised, saying that Mohammad had never done chores when he lived at home with his parents.
Samar has filed a complaint in Family Court in New Cairo, saying, “My husband did not give me the freedom to handle my home affairs, I feel like a guest in a hotel.” She is seeking ‘khula’, a procedure through which a Muslim woman can divorce her husband by returning the dower (mahr) that she received to marry him.