Mariages et séparations en Égypte au Moyen Âge

Actes inédits sur papyrus, papier, parchemin et tissu Mathieu Tillier and Naïm Vanthieghem

Tillier, Mathieu
Vanthieghem, Naïm

One day of December 875, the weaver Umar b. Musa, married Halma bint Nafis before illustrious witnesses from Fustat. Some six centuries later, in the spring of 1411, Lady Fatima bint Fath al-Din celebrated a second wedding with Tugan, a promising Mamluk officer, and hosted him with her retinue in her Cairene palace. Present-day historians would know nothing of them had their marriage contract not withstood the ravages of time, as have the hundred or so documents that Mathieu Tillier and Naïm Vanthieghem are publishing, translating and studying for the first time in this volume. Rich or poor, free or enslaved, the men and women of Medieval Egypt adopted the habit, from at least the eighth century CE onwards, of having their unions recorded in order to lay down the terms and conditions of their marriage. Dissolution by repudiation (talaq) or amicable divorce (hulʿ) were also entrusted to the care of notaries. The hitherto unpublished documents collected here, which span across the Abbasid, Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk periods, provide a unique insight into matrimonial strategies among commoners as well as elite members, and into marital relationships and legal practices, both in the capital and in the Egyptian countryside. After a first part devoted to the editing of marriage contracts and divorces deed as well as a few related documents, the authors offer a detailed study of matrimonial practices in medieval Egypt based on Arabic documents.