Pleasure For Whom?

My issue with this is not so much that it is inherently sexist, it is the whole religious sanctioning behind it that makes me sick. God-fearing or not, men always find a way to rationalize getting a piece of tail.

She is a 49-year-old divorced mother of seven children. He is a well-off farmer, with his own wife and children.

Theirs is a secret betrothal, with perfunctory vows exchanged alone in a bedroom for an ephemeral union.

''Mutaa,' a 1,400-year-old tradition alternately known as pleasure marriage and temporary marriage, is regaining popularity among Iraq's majority Shi'ite Muslim population after decades of being outlawed by the Sunni regime of Saddam Hussein.

According to Shi'ite religious law, unmarried women may enter into pleasure marriages with men (married or not) for periods as brief as a few minutes or as long as a lifetime. Dowries, too, range from virtually nothing to millions of Iraqi dinars.

Shi'ite clerics, including Iraq's highest religious authority, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, have sanctioned mutaa despite the social stigma attached to the marriages.

Women's activists in Iraq last year fought an effort by constitution drafters to endorse some form of Sharia, or Islamic law, in matters of marriage and family. The new national charter includes an article that allows Iraqis to choose their marital status according to their beliefs, and reinforces the primacy of civil authority in family law.

Whatever the religious legalities involved, people who participate in mutaa, especially women, risk their reputations and prospects for permanent marriage.

ICK!