Saudi Arabian women can live alone without male consent

Our Correspondent

Saudi Arabia has allowed women in the kingdom to live on their own without getting the legal consent from the male head of the family or guardian. Henceforth single women – unmarried, divorced or widowed – can live separately from their families without procuring male guardian’s consent.

The law, part of Article 169 of the Law of Procedure before Sharia, was scrapped and replaced by an amendment that permits adult women of rational mind to live in separate housing, according to Gulf News and Makkah newspaper.

“An adult woman has the right to choose where to live. A woman’s guardian can report her only if he has evidence proving she committed a crime,” Gulf News quoted the amended text as saying.

The law was amended as part of a landmark ruling in favour of 32-year-old Mariam al Otaibi, a writer, who won a case in Saudi courts to live alone. Otaibi had spent more than 100 days in prison in Saudi Arabia after her father filed a complaint to the police against her for leaving home and working without permission. She had moved from the ultraconservative province of Qassim to the capital Riyadh.

The amended law also means women will not have to return to their family or male guardians upon release from prison. Legal guardians are often a woman’s father or husband, but can also be a brother or son.

Since 2019, women can rent hotel rooms without a male guardian’s presence, and foreign men and women can share a room without proof of marriage. The kingdom also eased strict dress codes for tourist women; while requiring that shoulders and knees be covered in public, it has exempted them from the mandatory full-body abaya.

The move comes amid reforms kickstarted by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman which saw the lifting of a ban on movie theatres and on women driving.