Family
The 1956 Code of Personal Status, the earliest and furthest-reaching reform
The Code of Personal Status abolished polygamy outright in 1956, required judicial divorce, and set a minimum marriage age. It remains the most liberal personal status regime in the Arab world.
Key rules
- Jurisdiction — Family judges within the courts of first instance. The Code applies to Tunisian nationals regardless of religion in most respects.
- Deadline — Divorce requires a reconciliation stage before the family judge
- Deadline — Custody disputes are heard by the family judge attached to the court of first instance
Governing law
- Code of Personal Status, Decree of 13 August 1956
- Law 1993-74 amending guardianship and custody
- Law 2017-58 on eliminating violence against women
- Law 1998-75 on patronymic names for children born outside marriage
In practice
Tunisia is the outlier in the Arab world because the 1956 Code prohibited polygamy as a criminal offence rather than regulating it, and required all divorce to pass through a court, removing unilateral talaq. Those two choices were made at independence and have held. The 1993 amendments removed the wife's duty of obedience and gave mothers a role in guardianship. Inheritance remains the principal area where Quranic shares still produce unequal outcomes: a 2018 bill for equal inheritance was introduced and not enacted, so the unequal shares remain the law, and describing Tunisia as having achieved full equality in family law overstates it. Adoption is permitted, which is unusual in the region and follows from the same 1958 reform tradition.