Abstract
Marriages formed by religious ceremonies which are not legally recognized are often cited as synonymous with unregistered Muslim marriages. The conceived illegitimacy of such unions and the need for legal interventions has been raised in political discourse in the UK, as such marriages are deemed to counter women’s rights and wider legal and cultural norms. The recent independent review into the application of sharia law in England and Wales in particular brought the issue of legal reform to the fore. This article uses the concept of liminality to argue that these relationships may in fact indicate signs of integration, not isolation. Liminality is employed here to signify a process of transition from one set of cultural norms to another, and unregistered religious-only marriages in this theoretical framework represent a transition from state recognized unions, towards the widely accepted cultural norm of cohabitation. This new cultural practice remains in flux. This article draws on empirical research seeking to explore ‘English narratives’ where Muslim marriage practices are concerned. Focus group discussions and discourse analysis methodology are utilized to explore marriage practices in order to ascertain emerging norms and the perceived need or otherwise to register marriages with the state. These narratives are key to understanding the trend towards unregistered marriages. This article explores two key thematic areas which emerged in this research, namely, (i) integration: to register or not to register; and (ii) categories of Nikah.
Highlights
In its 2015 scoping exercise, the Law Commission for England and Wales defined ‘religious-only’ marriages as a marriage ‘formed by a religious ceremony not recognized as legally valid’.1 This form of marriage is most often portrayed in current literature as synonymous with Muslim marriage practices and is described as a VC The Author(s) 2018
The recent independent review into the application of sharia law in England and Wales in particular brought the issue of legal reform to the fore
Liminality is employed here to signify a process of transition from one set of cultural norms to another, and unregistered religious-only marriages in this theoretical framework represent a transition from state recognized unions, towards the widely accepted cultural norm of cohabitation
Summary
In its 2015 scoping exercise, the Law Commission for England and Wales defined ‘religious-only’ marriages as a marriage ‘formed by a religious ceremony not recognized as legally valid’.1 This form of marriage is most often portrayed in current literature as synonymous with Muslim marriage practices and is described as a. Examining the discourse of individuals whose relationships have not broken down is imperative to understanding this issue in a more universal way This allows for engagement with narratives around marriage practices and potential motivations for religious-only marriages, understanding of the legal system and its function in upholding family ties, and the emerging cultural norms evident in the marriage practices of Muslims living in England and Wales. Bartley and Spoonley[37] evidence this fluidity in their study of East Asian migrant adolescents to New Zealand where they argue that ‘transmigrants’38 ‘engage in such patterns of intense contact and exchange between both sending and receiving societies (and perhaps others as well), the two fields merge, and create opportunities to pursue alternatives to the conventional path of settlement and “gradual but inevitable assimilation”’.39 With this theoretical underpinning, this article will analyse the data arising from empirical research undertaken in the city of Leicester with Muslim participants ibid 14. The focus groups were intended to elicit views, practices and opinions of Muslims on family law issues and gauge how the interrelatedness of law and private family life was viewed
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