Egypt Restricts Right of Women to Divorce

CAIRO — The Egyptian Parliament has approved a new law on a man’s right to have several wives that appears to be a compromise between feminists and Islamic fundamentalists.

The law approved Monday replaces one adopted by President Anwar Sadat in 1979. Sadat’s law gave a woman the right to divorce if her husband took a second wife. The new legislation makes this conditional on “material or moral damage” befalling the first wife as a result of the man’s second marriage.

In Islam, a man is entitled to have up to four wives at the same time.