Code personal status

The Code of the personal status (CSP) is one of the most known acts of the Prime Minister and future president Habib Bourguiba shortly after the independence of its country. It is about a series of laws progressists, promulgated the August 13rd 1956 by Décret beylical and coming into effect on January 1st 1957, aiming to the equality between man and woman in many fields. So of many religious dignities, like the Sheik Mohamed Fadhel Ben Achour, did not hesitate to support that the provisions of the CSP constitute possible interpretations of the Islam, others are opposed to it by estimating that they “violate the Islamic standard”. This opposition obliges Bourguiba then to challenge, publicly and by name, the September 7th 1956, the members of the religious courts, requiring of them to say if the new text were in conformity with the religious law. 13 members of the two higher courts make public, the September 26th, a consultation in which they affirm that the CSP contains condemnable provisions because contrary with the Coran and with the Sunna. The majority of them are revoked or put at the retirement. In the tread, the Imam S which pronounce sermons fustigating the CSP or of the sheiks signatories of petitions or articles criticizing this one are stopped.

Text founder

Written by about fifteen lawyers in majority Arabic-speaking people, under the cane of the Minister for justice Ahmed Mestiri, he is voted in the tread of the independence and before even the drafting of the constitution. He gives to the women an amazing statute in the world arabo-Moslem, which exceeds even that of the French of the time, while proclaiming:

the principle of the equality of the man and the woman in the field of the Citizenship.
the prohibition of the Polygamy: “Whoever being engaged in bonds of the Mariage will have contracted another of them before the dissolution of the precedent will be liable to a one year imprisonment and a fine” (article 18). To justify this measurement, Bourguiba refers to a Sourate of Coran: “Marry, as you will like it, two, three or four women. But if you fear not to be not equitable, take only one woman” (verse 3 of the Sourate of the women). For Bourguiba, the condition of equity between the wives being impossible to ensure, the prohibition of polygamy becomes legitimate.
the principle of the Consentement of the two husbands like regulates validity of any marriage (article 3). The CSP poses this principle for the first time in a country arabo-Moslem.
introduction of a procedure of Divorce and right of the wife to repair: “the divorce can take place only in front of the Tribunal” (article 30). Until 1956, the divorce was the prerogative of the man who could repudiate his wife by a simple declaration authenticated by two witnesses.
institution of an obligatory minimum age to the marriage (limited initially to 18 years for the man and 15 years for the woman before raising it two years for one and the other in 1959).

Among the other innovations of the text, one can quote the contribution of the woman to the dependants and attribution with the mother, in the event of death of the father, the right of Tutelle on his minors.

Successive assets

The recognition of the right to vote and eligibility, applied since 1956, is officialized the March 14th 1957. In parallel, the Tunisian ones obtain the right to fall through and to profit from the contraceptive Pilule. August 13rd is declared Bank holiday (national Day of the Woman).

Since, the CSP called forever into question and several amendments even reinforced it like the abolition of the obligation to obey her husband or the right for a woman to transmit her patronym and its Nationalité. In same time, the Association of the Tunisian women for research and the development and the Tunisian Association of the democratic women present a document in which they ask the application without reserve of International convention for the elimination of all forms of discrimination with regard to the women (ratified by Tunisia).

The Tunisian women make studies today (58,1% of the students of the superior are women) and work in all the trade associations (including the armed , the civil aviation or military and the police force). They account for 72% of the Pharmacien S, 42% of the medical community, 27% of the Magistrat S, 31% of the lawyers and 40% of the professors of Université (on the whole nearly the quarter of the Active population of the country). Without law on the parity, they are also present at the government, the House of Commons and in the municipal councils. They are also heads of undertaking (between 10 and 15.000).

Difficulties

However, the Dot always exists, the man is still regarded as the household head and the heritage is completely uneven: the Charia grants to the men a double share compared to that of the women (one of the rare cases where the Islamic right is applied in Tunisia). In spite of some attempts, Bourguiba could not impose the equality of the two sexes in this field because of a too strong reserve of the religious leaders. It was thus satisfied to frame the practices to avoid the abuses. Moreover, it is not always easy to apply the texts in rural environment where the girls are often déscolarisées with the profit them boys to work with the Champ S or like employees of house. Lastly, though not explicitly prohibited in the CSP, the marriage of a Moslem woman with a not-Moslem remains impossible through Circulaire S and of the Jurisprudence (Houria stop).

But the legal limits are not the only encountered difficulties: certain mentalities are longer to change (problem of the Virginité or influences religious preachers fustigating the Western lifestyle on the Arab television channels). The Hijab, little established before, appeared at the end of the Années 1990 like return to a mythical arabo-Islamic authenticity of the country, the influence of the foreign television channels and the context following the attacks of September 11th which can constitute a complementary explanation.

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