According to Yossef Rapoport, in the 15th century, the rate of divorce was higher than it is today in the modern Middle East, which has generally low rates of divorce.[42] In 15th century Egypt, Al-Sakhawi recorded the marital history of 500 women, the largest sample on marriage in the Middle Ages, and found that at least a third of all women in the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt and Syria married more than once, with many marrying three or more times. According to Al-Sakhawi, as many as three out of ten marriages in 15th century Cairo ended in divorce.[43]

In the early 20th century, some villages in western Java and the Malay peninsula had divorce rates as high as 70%.[42]

This is pretty interesting if you’re used to a Western perspective where higher divorce rates and lower stigmatization of divorce is seen as a progressively “modern” thing. I wanna check out the cited sources bc I hope they get into some details about these divorces and if there’s information about social class, stated reasons and which spouse tended to initiate the divorce etc