ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses women's new freedoms granted through the adoption of the Code of Personal Status (CSP) within a critical framework that also exposed citizens' struggles with past traditions and their apprehension towards Habib Bourguiba's new vision of modernity. During the first year of Tunisia's independence from France, in 1956, the religiously bound family law system, also known as Shari'a law, was replaced by a secular system of laws that presupposed a greater equality between the sexes at home and in the public arena. Unlike the adoption of the 1926 Turkish Civil code, to which the CSP is often compared, the CPS was introduced to Tunisian society as an outcome of ijtihad. Like women in other regions in the world, Tunisian women were slow to engage in scientific education. The social importance given to marriage in Tunisia could sometimes hold dramatic surprises for both young men and women and their families during the nascent years of independence.
