Content area
Full Text
SYRIA Family Law in Syria: Patriarchy, Pluralism and Personal Status Laws, by Esther van Eijk. New York: I. B. Tauris, 2016. 298 pages. $110.
Reviewed by Mark D. Welton
Despite the ongoing civil war in Syria and the problems that conflict creates for academic research, the country remains an invaluable source of material for the study of family (personal status) law in a diverse though predominantly Muslim society. Family Law in Syria is an admirable effort undertaken under difficult circumstances, and in spite of the author's problems in gaining full access to legal officials, courts, and documents, the result is a successful and useful resource for understanding the complex relationship of law, religion, and culture in Syria and indeed in the Middle East.
As the title suggests, the book's thesis is that legal pluralism in the area of family law continues to exist among the various minority religious communities (Catholics and other Christian denominations and Jews) and the dominant Muslim community, although somewhat unequally within the overarching and theoretically controlling framework of the shari'a-based Syrian Law of Personal Status (SLPS), codified in 1953. However, both minority and majority legal traditions are infused with a very similar patriarchal bias that...