Civil Marriage in Lebanon

The ever rejected reform, Civil marriage as I wrote about it back in 1997

Battle of forms in civil or religious marriage
Many “mixed” couples avoid personal status law by holding their wedding abroad. Should this change?
By Diana Rhayem
Special to the Daily Star
May 15, 1997
The following article is on the juncture of law and religion. It is an exposition of basic legal differences between civil and religious marriage. It examines ways to accommodate the difficult balance between marriage as a religious institution, and marriage as a civil contract. In Lebanon, the aberration of “having to go to Cyprus” in order to celebrate marriage between two persons of different faiths, without subjecting one of them to the other party’s rituals and its legal consequences, highlights one of the absurd dimensions of the confessional system.


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Depending on the law of the country in which it is celebrated, marriage can take either a civil or a religious form. In both cases mutual consent, sound mental capacity and the respect of certain impediments – such as not being relatives in the direct line and in the collateral line to the third degree, are compulsory requirements.
While “secular” states usually define marriage as a social institution founded upon the consent and contract of the parties, the Catholic definition of marriage focuses on the holiness of the institution and the irrevocable consent of the two parties. For Catholics, marriage, as distinguished from the agreement to marry and from the ceremonial act of getting married, is the civil-religious status of one man and one woman legally united for life, from which derive rights and duties for the establishment  of families, the multiplication of the community and the education of children.
Marriage must therefore be contracted in accordance with the church’s statutory formalities- it cannot be made by mere consent of the parties. In order to make such marriage effective, there must be a “present intention” to make the contract. This must be expressed by the two parties and solemnised before a clergyman.
Since marriage is one of the seven sacraments – a religious, sacred, celebration – it is held to be a union for life. Church law does not permit it to be a subject of experimental or temporary agreement. It is a fixed and permanent status to be dissolved only by death or, only in the most exceptional circumstances, by annulment.
This,in the main, is the law for the largest part of Christian community in Lebanon, which is Catholic.
In contrast civil marriage, the main form recognised by the state in European countries, obeys a different set of principles. This is the law in Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Rumania and Switzerland, where the civil ceremony alone is recognised by law.
In most of these countries clergymen are prohibited under severe penalties from performing the religious ceremony before the civil marriage has taken place.
A civil ceremony is also required in Austria when both parties belong to no legally recognised faith.
There are similar provisions in Denmark, Norway and Sweden.
In England, as in most American states, state law regulates the forms needed to marry.
With the exception of the co-called common law marriage, which is a remnant of an old tradition under which a man and a woman who have been living together for a long time as husband and wife are recognised by the law as married, ministers of the various churches, who for that purpose are looked upon as a civil officers, can perform the marriage ceremony.
Of course, a couple which does not wish to celebrate their marriage in the church can go directly to the civil officers.
As is well known, there is no civil marriage in Lebanon. Each of the 18 recognised communities has its own personal status regulations. While marriage is a civil contract according to Islamic law (shariaa) and can dissolved by divorce, it is the most Christian communities a holy institution celebrated in a religious ceremony, which cannot be dissolved by human will. For purpose of evidence only, all celebrated marriages are registered in the one and only official personal status registry.  Increasingly in our country mixed marriages (in this case, a marriage between a man and woman from different religions) are taking place. When they occur in Lebanon, they usually take place before the religious authority of the husband.
However, the fact that fundamental discrepancies exist between each religions regulation leads to large number of difficulties especially when it comes to divorce, custody and other legal matters that must then be submitted to religious jurisdictions. In order to avoid such difficulties and religions jurisdictions altogether, Lebanese citizens belonging to different religions and wishing to marry can go to another country (usually Cyprus), to conclude a civil marriage and register it afterwards in the Lebanese official registry. In that case, any legal dispute would be submitted to the Lebanese civil jurisdictions. While this is clearly a way to avoid Lebanese law, it appears the easiest solution.
This bizarre option to go aboard for “mixed” marriages is also the crux of a debate which has been going on in the country for most of the century.
The main argument is that a “civilised” country should be built on the ground of neutral, non-sectarian concepts, and that, at least, a facultative civil personal status legal system should be allowed in order to minimise law evasions.
This, for the advocates of a Lebanese civil marriage, would give every citizen his or her right to decide whether to conclude a marriage inside Lebanon, according to religious regulations or to secular and civil regulations.

Diana Rhayem is a stagiaire lawyer also conducting post-graduate legal studies at St Joseph University

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