Arab states. Difiering and changing conceptions of 'the family' notwithstand ing, the heterosexual conjugal unit addressed by the codifications generally remains the lawful framework for sexual relations, and most states (apart from Tunisia) continue to disallow affiliative legal adoption, although some laws regulate the established institution of kafala to formalise and regulate cove nants of care. Proposals for a rescripting of the legal texts on the Muslim family on points such as these tend to be made on the bases of international norms rather than from within the dominant framework of shar'f postulates. More generally, however, the invocation of shari'a by state legislatures in relation to Muslim family law is contested within a political context by actors both opposing and proposing particular representations of shari 'a in the codes, in a 'relationship with the norm' that may seem to fit Dupret's description as 'highly strategic in nature'.73 In the Western academy, as among some fiqh scholars, there is criticism of a lack of jurisprudential coherence in the family codifications as compared with the uncodified fiqh heritage invoked as their basis; different criticisms address the rhetoric that purposefully obscures the political authority and choices central to the formulation of the codes and the regulation of the family and the position of women within it. These choices are highly significant in the options and remedies available to women within the family and at court, and despite reservations about the limits of state law as an instrument of social change, many women's rights activists invest consid erable effort in law focused advocacy and in the wider debate that looks set to continue.
73 Baudouin Dupret, 'Legal pluralism, normative plurality and the Arab world', in Baudouin Dupret, Maurits Berger and Laila al Zwaini (eds.), Legal pluralism in the Arab world (The Hague, 1999), p. 139.
World History
