Egyptian sues his wife over a dodgy macaroni

In a further sign of the social breakdown occurring under President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s watch in Egypt, an Egyptian man took his wife to court in Cairo, accusing her of failing to cook macaroni, Safa News reported yesterday.

Incredibly, the court immediately summoned the man’s wife to attend a hearing on the matter. The wife gave the court surprising details about this bizarre case and the reason of the dispute which led them to the court.

The woman said that she had married her husband three months ago, and accepting a condition in her marriage contract of the husband not spending more the five Egyptian pounds ($0.25) for household needs, including, food every day.

She said that she accepted this marriage due to the difficult condition of her unemployed husband, who owns a small mobile cart and works as a peddler of cheap goods earning very little income.

While she was speaking to the judges, the wife said that she one day bought a pack of macaroni and found that it had gone past its use-by date. She therefore disposed of it, holding the expectation that it would harm her husband’s health if she cooked it for him.

But when her husband returned home in the evening and she told him about the out-of-date macaroni that she got rid of, he beat her and broke her arm, accusing her of wasting his household budget.

Egyptians suffer from very high rates of unemployment and millions of Egyptians live under the poverty line due to the increasing economic crisis that caused massive price hikes that have now reached inflation of up to 400 per cent for many basic materials and medicines.