Stunning revelation

This show business melodrama's ramifications are hitting hard in the real world. Amany Abdel-Moneim explores the Ahmed El-Fishawi paternity case

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Ahmed El-Fishawi and Hend El-Hinnawi

"I didn't hide," a young woman named Hend El-Hinnawi said, live on prime-time, state-run TV. "We are living in a very hypocritical society... and eventually he will have to give the baby his name." The 27-year-old stylist had stunned the Arab world by filing a paternity suit against actor Ahmed El-Fishawi, the son of two Egyptian film stars.

El-Hinnawi claimed she had been in a secret urfi marriage with El-Fishawi -- a controversial mode of amorous consummation increasingly prevalent between Egypt's young -- and that he had possession of the only copy of the marriage contract; they had fallen out, she said, when, on conceiving, in lawful if not officially registered wedlock, she refused to have an abortion. To file a paternity suit, El-Hinnawi had to wait until the birth of her daughter Lina; such is the legal prerequisite. Initially denying any connection with El-Hinnawi, claiming he had only known her as a colleague, El-Fishawi later conceded that they had had an affair, not a marriage. The court ruling arrived faster than expected, perhaps due to the media attention the case received, and though he is now required to take a DNA test, El-Fishawi is refusing to do so.

Many have sympathised with El-Hinnawi, but just as many condemned her for going public. The saga brought urfi marriage to the forefront of public discourse, underlining the fact that, according to Ministry of Social Affairs statistics, there are some 14,000 paternity cases currently at court. Of these, lawyers and sociologists attribute 70-90 percent to urfi marriage. The phenomenon increased dramatically in the last decade, spreading in response to unemployment and inflation -- factors that acted to delay the marriage age. A way of sidestepping the social-economic requirements of marriage, urfi is sanctioned by religious scholars like Sayed Abul-Fotouh, professor of Islamic studies at Ain Shams University, but only if the matrimonial conditions stipulated by Sharia (Islamic law) are obtained: mutual consent; two male (or one male and two female) witnesses; a dowry paid to the bride; and ishhar (public announcement). "If one or more of these conditions are absent," Abul-Fotouh warns, "the marriage is illegitimate from the religious viewpoint." In Egypt and much of the Arab world -- for Muslims and non-Muslims alike -- legitimate sex requires marriage, especially for a woman, and especially for the first time. In the provinces, notably Upper Egypt, pregnancy out of wedlock still sometimes results in the father or brother killing his daughter or sister to uphold the honour of the family. More often, particularly for those to whom abortion (and increasingly, in the surreal morality of today, hymen repair surgery) is available, sex out of wedlock will remain a well kept secret.

El-Hinnawi went against the grain of Egypt's very social fabric by insisting on having the child, and in so doing setting off not only a nation- wide scandal, but a heated debate about clandestine marriage contracts in a conservative, religious society. "The whole of society says, 'it's shameful. It's a scandal. Go have an abortion'..." Thus Attiyat El-Abnoudi, a well-known documentary filmmaker who, after hearing about the case, became so involved in it that she is now Lina's godmother. "The importance of this case is that it is out in the open. The whole of society must ask whether this is a one off, or whether something is changing -- young people want to make love without getting married."

Insofar as issues of sex are increasingly present on Arab TV screens -- even religious talk shows, hosted by veiled young women, discuss the fine points of intercourse; movies portray hymen- restoration clinics as busy places -- such change is definitely underway. Four organisations -- the New Woman, the Woman's Issues Centre, the Egyptian Child Centre and the Helwan Association for Developing Society -- have launched public campaigns to support El-Hinnawi's mode of approaching the matter. In another country El-Hinnawi's story might have provoked little more than gossip. But in Egypt it has brought traditional values face to face with social realities, prompting a wide-range discussion of a topic on which most people will tend to keep their mouths firmly shut.

On a personal level, it has also had negative consequences for El-Hinnawi's extended family. The decision by her well-to-do parents (her father is an economist, her mother a psychology professor) to support their daughter's move was definitely not unanimously lauded. Led by one uncle, her mother's side of the family has cut off all contact, while her father's relatives have grown distant and formal.