Muslim wives legally invisible

[ShowMeTheHunny]

Perhaps this should be in the feminism chat, but I’ve just found out something shocking: 60% of British Muslim women are in Nikah only marriages.

Nikah is a religious marriage ceremony. Unlike Jewish or Christian marriages, there is no automatic civil registration.

This means that under British law a Muslim woman with a Nikah marriage is in fact not married at all. If the relationship ends (through separation, divorce, or death), she has: no right to spousal maintenance, no claim to property or pensions, no inheritance rights and no access to the protections of the UK Family Court.

This has been raised in parliament. This has been raised by judges. The 2018 government review found that many Muslim women believed their Nikah marriage had legal standing.

Anything done about it? Nope.

I wondered if this is covered in schools. There is a statutory relationships and sex education guidance that the DfE published which schools must follow. It does require teaching about marriage, but NOTHING in the statutory wording prompts schools to explain the difference between a religious-only ceremony and a civilly recognised marriage.

So, many/most of you might be thinking, ‘So what? It’s none of our business to interfere with others’ religious or cultural practices! Surely it’s the same situation in other countries?’

Nope. The following countries ensure, through legislation, that Islamic marriage ceremonies happen after or alongside civil registration:

France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Finland, Sweden….basically all the European countries….except Britain.

Anyway, anyone else shocked?

And if I understand you correctly this would also be the case in England and wales. For example, priests and rabbis are just authorised celebrants. You could hire an authorised celebrant to your Muslim ceremony, or presumably imans could qualify if they took the courses.

Ah, two others replied more quickly than me! Still, given the topic it’s probably good to have misinformation corrected!

By not making it legal the men can also have multiple wives - usually in multiple countries which suits them nicely

I'm not sure educating the women would make any difference unfortunately.

As much as it's an uncomfortable topic to discuss, the truth is there's massive inequality in many Muslim cultures and woman are not viewed as equal. There will be many situations that regardless of whether the woman wants a legally recognised marriage the decision will not be hers to make.

I agree on teaching about the dangers of first cousin marriage. Funnily enough, this is also NOT covered by the government’s statutory RSE guidance for schools.

Agree. I'm not sure how anyone thinks that would actually be enforceable.

It would be better to try and tackle this issue through education, and if there is a legal obligation on religious celebrants it could really only be that they have to tell the couple this isn't a legal marriage. I don't think it's at all realistic for the state to try and control religious ceremonies, sacraments, things people say to each other in churches or temples or mosques.

Yeah it’s very worrying, my temple ensured I had a civil marriage before my religious marriage. We had to get the paperwork sorted before the Gudwara would book my wedding, I had the option of doing it elsewhere in advance or having it done at the temple just before the wedding. It stops people from just not doing it afterwards.

This is a problem with religious institutions. Ideally they should be refusing to perform a nikah without either evidence of a civil marriage taking place prior to the Nikah or conducting it themselves. the sceptic in me thinks it works out fine for men in these communities and thats why the some Mosques aren’t enforcing it. Glad to hear muslim lawyers are raising it, muslim women should be entitled to the same legal protections as any other british woman.

It leaves women in a really shitty situation. I do wonder if we need to introduce legislation around no religious marriage being able to be performed without a civil marriage taking place beforehand and then just fine the shit out of anyone who does it. But thats a bit dicey in terms of religious freedom.

That’s what happens when men come to the uk but don’t want to change to uk ways, preferring to do things the traditional way. And there is no incentive to change. Why would they want forced to pay their ex maintenance in the event of a divorce!

There should be more recognition of this issue by imams and no shame on the woman for insisting on a uk recognised marriage.

My friend had a uk one (paper marriage, ie civil ceremony by a registrar) not being Muslim herself, and her husband subsequently married another woman in Islam, who was then considered by his family to be his one and only wife as it was a long standing arrangement with his family since childhood. What a mess.

I was thinking along those lines aswell
most Muslim lawyers or solicitors would be male (dont roast me )and wouldn't give a female muslim a very strong argument or defence

Agreed but also suspect in many Muslim marriages both man and woman wouldn’t be educated in the uk so not sure how schools help really.
My Muslim female friends here are educated professionals and not the type to not understand whether they’re legally married. I suspect that generally falls to the girls brought over from Pakistan to marry a British man.

I think in secondary schools under the statutory sex and relationships curriculum would be a good place to teach this. My sister works in an abortion clinic. She sees lots of Muslim women who get pregnant in one of these Nikah marriages; it is very easy for the husband to then disband the Nikah and the woman is left with the shame of an unmarried pregnancy, which is still looked down on in many cultures.

That’s very clear and firm from the Gudwara. Leaves no room for misinterpretation. That’s the sort of support people need from their institutions to navigate marriage

Same. Our church wouldn't have offered a purely religious Catholic marriage to people who aren't also having the legal part during the ceremony (they did do blessings in some circumstances but not a wedding under canon law). That, afaik, is the choice of the RC church itself not the law of the land. As the religious part was before the legal part, I wondered what would've happened if we'd just walked out between the sacrament and the register signing!

Yes i was going to say this.

Sometimes a woman is thankful that her marriage isnt legally recognised when it comes time for her to leave.

In theory, I’m with you. However, lots of women already think their nikah is enough because the ceremony feels just like a wedding. Even if schools or mosques explain it, many will still believe they’re protected until the law actually requires the civil bit. Unless civil registration is made compulsory, too many women will slip through the cracks.
Even many Muslim-majority countries, like Morocco, Tunisia and across the Gulf, a nikah has to be registered with the state to be valid. Some even make premarital checks or civil paperwork compulsory before an imam can marry a couple. So if those countries can legislate to make sure women are protected, surely we could do the same? Right now we’re actually more lax than places that people assume would be stricter.

I won’t roast you but that’s a big assumption about Muslim family solicitors

Many mosques are increasingly refusing to do a religious wedding until the civil wedding has been done first, so it is something that is being addressed by many imams.

The issue is it isn’t being enforced by enough of them.

I worked with a UK educated Muslim woman. She only understood that she was not legally married when she was looking into what she needed to do to register the birth of her first child. She had not realized that her Nikah was not legally recognized. It should have been required that the Imam explain to the couple that they were not legally married. She and her husband married at the town hall as quickly as they could manage as they wanted their marriage and their children to be legitimate.

It's not always trying to cheat the women. My inlaws genuinely did not know that a Hindu marriage is not legal without registration. They assumed it was after a whole day of rituals!

Luckily my dad knew. Once my inlaws were told, they and DH were keen to register too.

Easy, 50k fine for performing a religious ceremony without a prior civil marriage. If 60% of women are affected in that community then it’s a big enough problem to crack down hard on. I read of one woman who couldn’t obtain a divorce from a shariah court because her husband was demanding 100k in the negotiations. i have no problem with people wanting to use their own courts but tbh the whole area needs to be looked at. Shrugging our shoulders and doing nothing about it because of religious sensitivities is just throwing a bunch of women under the bus. Fuck that frankly.

www.thetimes.com/uk/society/article/sharia-law-women-marriage-wedding-3gtt6xk8v

I agree the £50k fine would work.

Even so, with a legally recognised marriage that woman still wouldn’t be able to get a divorce through the sharia court, even if legally divorced in the uk, so it doesn’t help with that situation.

many people would think themselves still married if the Muslim marriage wasn’t dissolved

A neighbour is married both ways. UK law screws her just as much as Sharia because she doesn't have the freedom to dismiss family elders advice.
She didn't know about the company set up in her name but I hope the one.gov thing resolves that sooner or later. Her husband is a criminal, and has already taken her son once and had the police rescue him.

This would need legislation. Government unwilling to do it for some reason.

‘doing nothing about it because of religious sensitivities is just throwing a bunch of women under the bus’ reminds me of another situation the UK is currently dealing with….hmmmm

I think those women are similar to the women in the wider population who live with their partner for years, have children and a property and think it gives them the same legal rights as married women.

Difficulty is that many Moslem women are in relationships with men who are also “married” to other women. So making registration obligatory would only work for the first wife.