wife may request a divorce if any of the following apply: her husband has failed to provide for her; her husband is impotent; her husband has refused to have sex with her for over 4 months; her husband has been condemned to a dishonorable imprisonment of over a year's length; her husband has been absent for over a year without a good reason; her husband has failed to fulfill his legal duties towards her; her husband is guilty of grave immorality. A women may also obtain the divorce if she pay reparations to her husband not to exceed the value of the dowry, and may not remarry until three menstrual periods have elapsed, or, if pregnant, until her baby's birth. In case of the father's absence or of divorce, custody of the child goes to his mother, or failing that his maternal grandmother or aunt, or failing that his father or paternal grandfather, or some other relative. A child brought up by a guardian attains independence at 15(if male), or at marriage (if female). The Family Code of 1984 condemned non-marital rape yet allowed for marital rape to continue to be decriminalised. Officially, women had the status of full citizens and were equal to men. Article 56 of the Code grants custody of the children to the father if the mother remarries, a section that failed to be removed in the 2005 revision and does not apply to the same situation for the male counterpart. Much like the law condemning violence against women, there exists a loophole that could easily void all progress made in parliament, a loophole held open by societal pressures. Keeping the remarriage clause would unable once more the father to gain full custody, taking into account that voluntarily unmarried women in Algeria are seen as “immoral” and functioning in society without a husband is extremely inconvenient considering the astounding amount of male-oriented bureaucracy and systemic discrimination. Revolts against Family Code In her text, Algerian Women, Citizenship and the 'Family Code', Zahia Smail Salhi looks at the efforts taken by women to contest the family code. She draws on experiences of women at that time to note that men were generally absent in this struggle. Since 1984, younger generations of women have joined the fight against the family code. This has led to some revisions to be made. The family code was revised in 2005, after then