Arabs are divorcing more often

, Arab divorcees tended to be objects of scorn. “No virginity, no dowry,” sniffed Adel Imam, Egypt’s leading actor, in “Halfout”, a film in the 1980s. Today they are often heroines, confronting bastions of patriarchy in courtroom, mosque and marital bed. A big hit across the Arab world last Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting (and feasting on television), was “Fatin Amal Harbi”, an Egyptian soap opera about a mother escaping from her abusive ex-husband. “Pop culture had more impact than decades of fighting for our rights,” says a female Palestinian campaigner.Once frowned upon, divorce is increasingly common. Whereas rates have fallen in the West (partly because more couples never marry in the first place), they continue to climb in the Middle East. Egypt’s have more than doubled since the process was made easier for women in 2000. In Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates more than a third of marriages end in divorce. In Kuwait almost half do, a higher rate than America’s.