Egyptian men complain that women can divorce them too easily

The law of unconditional divorce, or khol'a, passed in 2000, Al-Arabiya reports. In response, a man named Abdul-Rahman Hamed founded the Egyptian Organization for Divorced Men, which "rejects the law because it equalizes men and women and gives the woman the right to get a divorce herself, a right that was previously exclusive to men."

The complaints that Hamed and others register are almost comical in their backwardness, at least in the eyes of this American.

"Men are losing ground. In the past, a man had the upper hand. Now, the woman is acting as his peer. If he threatens her with divorce, she does the same. She might even divorce him without his knowledge," Hamed told Al-Arabiya.

""This shows that unconditional divorce is no longer done discreetly and is not the exception anymore. Women even brag about divorcing their husbands with their friends. This law is making women tyrannical."

Women are bragging about their divorces? Quelle horreur! God save us from independent women!

Hamed, of course, was divorced by his own wife, even though he tried to "straighten her up." He assures Al-Arabiya that he's not ashamed by it, but claims that most divorced men "are rejected when they propose to women as if they are infected with some contagious disease."

I'll save some of the other quotes for you to go read them on Al-Arabiya's Web site for a good chuckle. But let's take Hamed's criticisms seriously for a second. You might recall back in October when we wrote about how divorce was on the increase in Egypt. A government study found that 84,430 Egyptian couples divorced in 2008, an 8.4 percent increase from 2007.

Certainly, Egypt has a conservative, family-oriented culture that is witnessing an upheaval of traditional ways of life. Hamed says he's particularly horrified by older women, 75 and up, divorcing their husbands. Such a decision "ruins" years of family life, he says. His organization has written to a host of government agencies to get khol'a repealed.

This illuminates a fundamental difference between conservative Muslim societies and the West, where the idealization of personal freedom has been in vogue for more than 300 years. In the United States, for instance, we consider a woman's individual freedom to divorce (or get an abortion) more important than enforcing the continuity (or creation) of families. Our loyalty to individual freedom runs so deep that an article such as this can only seem comical.

There's something to be said for strong families holding together the fabric of a society and raising children. Many Muslims, not to mention Christians from more conservative societies in Africa, Central America and elsewhere, would argue that there are serious downsides to the way the United States elevates personal freedom and the correlated pursuit of personal wealth.

But if a government's first objective should be to not harm its citizens, then an opening, rather than restricting, of laws of personal freedom should be in order. That is, unless Egyptians believe that their women are not capable of making decisions in their best interest.