By Zak Brophy Reprint | | Print |
A demonstration in Beriut in support of civil marriage. Credit: Zak Brophy/IPS.
A demonstration in Beriut in support of civil marriage. Credit: Zak Brophy/IPS.
BEIRUT, Feb 9 2013 (IPS) - One couple’s modest marriage in Lebanon has catapulted them into media limelight and sparked a national debate pitting the Prime Minister against the President while eliciting stern condemnation from leading religious figures. Their union is both exceptional and controversial – it is the first civil marriage in the country.
In Lebanon social and political integration is realised through sectarian affiliation; it is within the legal institutions of the 18 different religious sects that marriages are traditionally authorised. “It is really a different feeling when you feel like a human being getting married to another human being based on human rights and not on sectarian rights,” the groom, Nidal Darwish, tells IPS.
Darwish and his bride Kholoud Sukkariyeh tied the knot in a secret ceremony at her house with just her brother for a witness, and a notary to oversee the signing of the contract. But once their marriage entered the public domain it soon became a hot and controversial topic of discussion across the country. What may in many societies seem a trivial matter cuts deep into Lebanon’s social, political and religious fabric.
Nidal Darwish and his bride Kholoud Sukkariyeh.
Lebanon President Michel Sleiman took to social media to lend his support to the couple, tweeting “We should work on legalising civil marriage contracts, this would be a step forward to abolish sectarianism and enhance co-existence.”
With the people’s attention drawn and Darwish and Sukkariyeh gracing prime time TV chat shows, Prime Minister Najib Mikati came out in opposition. The Prime Minister, in a twitter exchange with the President, said renewing the debate on civil marriage would be “futile” in the face of the political problems facing the country.
While the political community has come out split over the issue of civil marriage, there have been varying degrees of opposition from the religious establishments of different sects. The grand mufti of the Sunni Muslim community opposed the idea of civil marriage most virulently. He threatened in a religious edict, or fatwa, “Every Muslim official, whether a deputy or a minister, who supports the legalisation of civil marriage, even if it is optional, is an apostate and outside the Islamic religion.”[. . .]
Full text here: http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/02/marriage-made-in-civil-heaven/
