Saudi divorces are on the rise, for a lot of pretty crazy reasons

The number of divorces in Saudi Arabia has increased over last year, going up from 24,384 to 27,209, statistics from the National Information Centre indicate.

While there was ground for some of the divorces with the spouses growing apart for various reasons or falling out of love, some cases have been categorised among the most bizarre in 2015, Saudi news site Sabq reported.

In one instance, a woman in her 20s approached the authorities in Al Qatif to file for divorce arguing that her husband of seven months was too short.

She said that she could no longer tolerate the “scornful” looks on her friends’ faces or the puzzled expressions expressed by people whenever they saw the couple together in public places.

In another, a wife was divorced by her husband after he fell off with her brother and wanted to exact revenge.

Both the brother and the husband were members of an online group. However, following a dispute, the brother who was the group manager deleted the husband who in a fit of anger divorced his wife and expelled her out of the house in revenge.

A delightful moment between a husband and his wife turned into a family tragedy when the couple were visiting her family.

The wife was showing Al Waleef, a camel worth millions of Saudi Riyals owned by her father, to her husband and told him that the animal was more expensive than him. The husband rejected the comparison as a joke and divorced his wife. In a case where a joke turned sour, a newly-wed couple was spending time with the husband’s family when, in the course of the conversation, she used a tribal expression that could mean “shut up!”

The husband was deeply embarrassed that his wife used the expression in front of his mother who was outraged by her audacity. He decided on the spot to divorce her in front of his mother to please her.

Contact lenses have also caused a couple to divorce one month after their marriage. The wife requested the divorce after her husband refused to allow her to wear contact lenses, claiming they represented artificial beauty. The husband accused his wife of resorting to fake beauty, and insisted that she needed to be educated about the way she should deal with him. However, the wife refused the accusations and said that her husband could not be a beggar and a chooser. The marriage ended in divorce.

By Habib Toumi