Under the guise of benevolent masculinity, many a man will present themselves as an old-fashioned gentleman eager to do things the traditional way and provide for the woman they are courting—not just emotionally and spiritually, but indeed financially. Whilst at times it can be attributed to nothing else but a certain upbringing—and it would likely be the case in more socially conservative societies such as many in the Middle East and North Africa—it also all too often serves, intentionally or not, as a form of leverage towards coercive control: here, grooming a woman towards total reliance and dependence over a man until she has limited avenue to leave, or can easily be made to feel guilty if she does. In effect, she eventually becomes increasingly powerless against the prospect of sexual, physical, and emotional violence at the end of her partner, or dare I say, of her master. Morocco’s latest revision of its family code known as the Mudawana, a reform which started in 2024 and is ongoing, hopes to tackle some of these at-risk situations indirectly.

The practice described above is called debt bondage and is well-documented in the gender-based violence literature. It is used by human traffickers to gain the trust of their victims and lure them into a relationship with them, but also in more classic cases of intimate partner violence. For this reason, many policies advocating for women’s economic empowerment operate under the theoretical premise that greater agency and financial independence also contribute to reducing women’s risk of being subjected to violence. Educational achievement thereby also indirectly becomes a factor in reducing the risk of a woman finding herself in a dependent, subservient position, making it convenient for the man she’s with to abuse this position. This is particularly pertinent in a day and age where the burden of proof in assault cases still rests in the hand of the victim—making juggling the important notion of presumed innocence until proven guilty with the need to protect victims and hold perpetrators accountable particularly tricky, especially considering how difficult and unlikely it is to prove rape in the absence of security camera, and even more so in one’s own home.

The Mudawana reform aims to suppress loopholes relating to marrying minors, further limit polygamy, and ease the process of divorce, especially when initiated by a woman, in addition to allowing her the guardianship of her child. It also gives engagement legal weight whilst canceling that of the religious Fatiḥa marriage so as to only recognize the civil, contractual one. Somewhat progressively even by Western standards, the new law might also require parties to weigh unpaid domestic work as a formal contribution to the household material assets when dividing them upon divorce, although no measurement standards to translate these traditionally unpaid efforts into financial assets have been agreed upon.

This reform led to a fierce backlash by a large set of the population who saw it as undue secularisation of the country and an invitation to sin, despite the involvement of Islamic scholars in its drafting. Young men, in particular, testify in local media they consider it a deterrence from marriage, fearing women would dominate them, if not exploit them.

Disinformation on the actual content of the reform also quickly started circulating, such as the false claim that it will require divorced men to pay alimony not only to their children but also to their ex-wife’s new husband. This has added fire to the backlash in a country where young people grow increasingly disillusioned with a government they consider out-of-touch, and made of a secularised corrupted elite who threatens Morocco’s national identity. This disconnect between the intention of policy-makers—here, offering more protection to Moroccan women—and the people’s perception of them, might be cause to worry, considering that popular, Islamic discontent towards an overly secularizing government has led many a country to a full-blown revolution. Balancing the need to provide protections for women in a country where gender inequality remains entrenched in the law with the need to publicly signal to the country’s majority that their needs and opinions are respected and taken into account makes for a fragile dance.  Any misstep in pursuing the former goal could lead to far greater regression of women’s rights in the long run.