Saudi Arabia: Under Age Marriage and the Law

Pressure began rising after a court annulled the marriage of an 8-year-old girl to a 50-year-old man in Oneizah last week.

Courtesy: emptyquarter.net

(DUBAI, UAE) - In an interview with Asharq Al Awsat newspaper, the Saudi Justice Minister Muhammad Al Eissa discussed several issues that have been highlighted by Saudi and international press, especially under age marriages and the new changes in the legal system advocated by King Abdullah and he also talked about possible new changes to the law that will ban marriage under the age of 18.

Minister Al Eissa said that one of the solutions to the problem that has surfaced lately in the kingdom was to ban marriage for those under 18. He qualified his statement by saying that it is what he thinks but, of course, there are other opinions on the age of marriage and those have to be taken into consideration.

The minister words come after a court annulled the marriage of an 8-year-old girl to a 50-year-old man in Oneizah last week. The case, which has been highlighted by both Saudi and international press, seemed to act as the tipping point and the court’s decision might prove to be a historical one, especially in some areas in Saudi Arabia.

But so as not to be blinded by happy news, we have to note that the battle is far from over, we are talking about a rigid social system that prevails in parts of the kingdom and the Arab world as well, one that considers such marriages as normal practice, and fathers and guardians think they can dispose of their children anyway they can.

That way of thinking is paired sometimes with the possibility of making money out of the matrimony by taking a high dowry for the girl, and this is where the whole issue turns from being a social practice into becoming a slave trade. The fact that the Oneizah girl was married off to an old man in his 50s for a big sum of money just works as an illustration.

But what can the new legal system do to prevent such practice? Again as illustrated by the Oneizah girl case, judges have different views on the matter of the age of marriage, and each issues a verdict according to what he thinks is right, so one would not see anything wrong with fathers using their positions as guardians of the family to marry off the girls at any age, and on the other side another judge would not agree to let such a case go by.

What the new legal system must do to prevent this is to make it clear that there are limits and rules to be followed and after that judges’ interpretations can work within that frame.

But, of course, once you open the religious debate door, things stop to be clear cut, which is legitimate, discussions are always positive but the law has to be away from these discussions, we cannot accept that a girl aged 8 will be married off because a judge saw that he is following a religious statement that agreed, or even the other way really.

That is why the justice minister specifically stated in his interview that work is being done right now to formulate a system that will be binding to all judges to follow unless “one judge sees differently then he has to state specifically the reasons and clauses he depended on in his judgement” that, the minister tells us, will be raised to the appeals court to approve it.

The battle is also going outside the border as newspapers have carried the news that there is debate between Bahraini MPs about a ministerial order setting the marriage age for girls at 15 and men at 18 and there too MPs think that this limit is against “Islamic principles”. And it is obvious that the job facing justice ministers in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain is a tough one, but one which will benefit from the public debate that is happening right now.

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Abeer Mishkhas is an Arab writer based 
in London. She can be reached at: 
abeermishkhas@yahoo.co.uk

Special thanks to: Khaleej Times Online

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