Race, Gender and Orientalism: Muta and the Canadian Legal System

In this article, the author discusses a Canadian Shi'a Muslim woman's fight for custody of her child born from a Muta, a temporary marriage characterized in the article as a contract wherein a man offers financial compensation to a woman in exchange for a sexual relationship. The author describes what she believes to be factors of racism and sexism that entered into the judgment by the Canadian court. Particularly noted is the judge's emphasis on what the author refers to as the Eurocentric value of a nuclear family. Issues of women's position in multicultural communities as well as the influences of Orientalist and Islamist discourses on Muslim women are discussed. [Descriptors: Race and Gender, Canada]