Tue, Oct 15, 2024 | Rabi al-Thani 12, 1446 | DXB ktweather icon°C

Saudi women use wedding contracts to assert right to drive

Top Stories

Husband flees UAE leaving kids behind, wife left with Dh120,000 debt; can travel ban be imposed?

UAE: Citizenship, Golden Visa offered to attract 'talented people' to stay in country

UAE prepares for potential rainfall, coastal flooding due to tropical depression

Saudi women use wedding contracts to assert right to drive

Dammam - Overturning the world's only ban on women drivers is the most palpable social change in the kingdom.

Published: Mon 24 Jun 2019, 11:11 PM

Updated: Tue 25 Jun 2019, 9:52 AM

  • By
  • AFP

Saudi salesman Majd had just begun his wedding preparations when his fiancee sought to enshrine in their marriage contract a condition already guaranteed by law - her right to drive.

Such legally binding contracts typically codify anything from the woman's right to have her own house, hire a maid, or to study or work.

But after the kingdom last year lifted a decades-long ban on female motorists, a popular new condition in the contracts is the right to own and drive a car, according to documents seen by AFP and interviews with wedding clerics.

Majd, 29, who is due to marry this month in his native Dammam in eastern Saudi Arabia, signed off on two demands from his 21-year-old fiancee - the right to drive and to work after marriage, according to the contract he shared.

"She said she (would) like to be independent," explained Majd, who requested his last name be withheld as the discussion was a private family matter. "I replied: 'sure, why not?'"

Overturning the world's only ban on women drivers is the most palpable social change in the kingdom, which is pursuing a wide-ranging liberalisation drive.

To drive, women do not require the explicit approval of their male "guardians" - husbands, fathers and other male relatives, whose permission is needed by women to study, get married and even leave prison.



Next Story