Too much sex, not enough love (in Malaysia, where else!)

Dina's had a funny post on her website (now defunct), but like most things that are unintentionally funny there's a tragic side to it. Apparently there's this woman who doesn't like her husband anymore and refuses to have sex with him. In fact, she wants a divorce. The guy refuses, saying to himself (and I'm paraphrasing), "I guess I could marry another woman for sex while still keeping my original wife." But the tragedy -- oh the tragedy! -- is that he can't bring himself to marry the second wife!

Of course, you and I know that the REAL tragedy is that:

No. 1
...it's still okay to have multiple wives in Malaysia. (Did you know it was outlawed by a 1997 judicial opinion in Bangladesh?)

No. 2
...for whatever reason, the guy can't stand to lose this woman -- maybe because he still loves her, or maybe he doesn't love her but he doesn't want to lose face -- and is forcing her to remain married to him, and thus keeping her prisoner for life.

No. 3
...under Malaysia's Muslim Family Law Code a woman has no right to file for a no-fault divorce. So, he can be as mean as he wants but as long as he does nothing illegal, that woman is stuck with this man. Forever.

+ + +

The "Marriage Lite" option [aka kahwin misyar] is a good idea for Islamic societies where adults want to explore love and be sexual. In fact, if all the legal underpinnings were there, misyar marriage could turn out to be a safe option for lovers, who would otherwise be caught in ridiculous situations like the above. Also, there's not so much "lost honour" or loss of face if the couple splits up after a misyar union.

I'll be the first to say that sounds kind of crazy -- but, then again, if you want to beat the system, you have to be inventive.