This debate erupts every few years in Lebanon, with an upswell of popular support for the idea of marriage not governed by misogynistic, archaic religious laws. Popular support is often followed by politicians jumping on the opportunity to bank on it. Then, like clockwork, most religious authorities threaten with excommunication and worse, forcing our spineless politicians to retreat back to their sad original positions.

Short Case for Civil Marriage

There are almost infinite reasons why we need to have civil marriage in Lebanon, but I’ll list just a few now given that the purpose of this post isn’t to elaborate why civil unions need to be legal in Lebanon, but why they need to be compulsory.

Our constitution says that we are all equal under the law, but how can we even begin to believe that and implement it, when we have over 15 different personal status laws in one tiny country. This means that a Maronite mother isn’t equal to a Sunni mom, nor a Shia or Druze one. Same goes for the fathers and the kids. How can we expect to be equal under law, when there isn’t one law that’s written after the Dark Ages and takes into consideration basic stuff, like rape is wrong, men and woman are equal and kids wellbeing shouldn’t be decided by archaic religious laws that make no sense in the 21st Century and cause far more harm than good (if any).

Our personal status law is broken, and highly favors abusive men over their abused spouses. Kids are often the most affected victims, since religious courts don’t take into account the best interests of the child, just wooden laws and the arbitrary numbers in them. Look at the mother who went on a hunger strike and camped out in front of Bkerke the past few days as an example for how dysfunctional and detrimental these religious courts and laws are.

For the one-track-minded people that only see things in dollar signs and lira pounds, those with the education and the means, will probably hop on a plane to Cyprus or Greece, and tie the knot there. That means losing all the money they would have spent here on celebrating their love with their loved ones. It’s so commonplace, that travel agents have been offering special “civil marriage in Cyprus” packages for years now. Just look what I found with a quick Google search…

Why It Must Be Mandatory

For all their dysfunction, religious courts in Lebanon are like everything else: if you have a wasta and some money, you can get things done fairly quick. A good lawyer and enough money to burn, and even Maronites can get a divorce these days.

Apart from that bitter reality, people with the means will usually opt out for the Cyprus/Greece/Europe marriage route. That’s because they know it’s in their best interests, and the best interests of their future children if they decide to have any.

This means that folks with a little money to spare and with enough education and awareness to know the threat and damage of going down the religious court road, can easily avoid it.

Of course, being able to tie the knot under civil laws that aren’t thousands of years old, in our own country, is much less of a hassle, but the real misfortune is for a majority of people who under our corrupt government do not have the means to escape to better country to exercise their natural right of getting married and starting a family.

That’s why keeping it optional is the wrong step to take, given that the women that need it the most, will not be granted that choice by their conservative, patriarchal communities that still believe gender equality and treating women as human beings and as equals is an “imperialist conspiracy to destroy our societies”. Yeah, cause a man being able to rape and kill his wife without going to jail is what keeps our society together. Shame.

In other words, women that are most at risk of abuse and murder, whose husbands and brothers/fathers can kill them without going to jail, as we’ve seen time and again, will not be safe if this is only optional. Just like mothers who will stick with abusive fathers because the priest or sheikh will take custody away from her, and they don’t want to lose their sons and daughters to the monsters they unfortunately married or were forced to marry. They often ending up losing their lives and happiness, just for a chance to stay with their kids.

Stop Thinking Rights = West

We weren’t always this women-hating in this part of the world. The notion that having human and civil rights is somehow contradictory to Arab culture and heritage, is absurd. It might be the heritage of a few bedouin tribes who have a lot of money now, but for the rest of us, women were never seen as wretched animals who deserve to be abused and robbed of their dignity and rights.

Extremists who use such rhetoric do not represent the majority, and the fact they tie civil marriage to zionism and imperialism and whatever isms they find in fashion goes to show how they have absolutely no argument except facile scaremongering that they keep repeating in hopes we’ll bite. We won’t.

I hope Rayya El Hassan’s pledge to work on making civil marriage a reality is sincere, and that her commitment to combating domestic violence does yield some results, where women who seek help are not ridiculed and downplayed, and their rapists and murderers stop getting off the hook thanks to the archaic mentalities shaped by our broke personal status law, governed by old, angry men in black robes.