RABAT, Morocco -- In the lottery of arranged marriage, winners and losers sometimes take years to reveal themselves.

But one soft-spoken woman seated in a Casablanca women's shelter said her fortunes were apparent from the start. Soon after her 2003 wedding, her husband made a regular practice of abusing her, said the woman, 27, who asked for safety reasons to go only by her initials, S.H.

For six years, S. stuck with her husband, an unemployed textile worker, who insulted...