Nikah Express: Malay Polygyny and Marriage-making at the Malaysian–Thai Border

Abstract

ABSTRACT Recent years have seen rising numbers of Malaysian couples contracting cross-border marriages (CBMs) in Southern Thailand to “halalise” (render permissible) romantic relationships and secret polygynous unions. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork conducted at the Malaysian–Thai border, this article examines the Malaysian state’s increasing bureaucratic intervention in these elopements, and the streamlining of marriage procedures in Thailand that raises the legal standard of these marriages to one recognised by Malaysian Syariah Courts. It argues that the strengthening cooperation between the Malaysian and Thai Islamic bureaucracies creates a level of standardisation and synchronisation that allows for a more facile recognition of each other’s authority, and an easier “translation” of their policies, practices and certification standards. Although this unveils new pathways and possibilities for Malaysian couples to access intimacy halal (lawful) in Islam, Malaysian Syariah law and Malay custom (adat), it also facilitates men’s circumvention of existing legal restrictions on polygyny in the Islamic Family Law. Through the lens of CBMs, this article illustrates how transnational and cross-border collaborations between neighbouring Islamic bureaucracies in Southeast Asia engender unintended but direct detrimental consequences in the everyday practice and experience of polygyny for Muslims in Malaysia.