Tying the knot with strings attached

By Ramadan Abdel Kader

A massive controversy has erupted after a lawyer suggested a sort of union he called “part-time” marriage.

The proposal encourages married men to take a second wife and live with her one day a week. The idea, according to the lawyer, aims at grappling with high divorce rates and giving unmarried women a chance to tie the knot.

There are at least 2.5 million divorced women mostly under the age of 30 in Egypt, lawyer Ahmed Mahran said. He defended his proposal, denying accusations that the “part-time” marriage is illegal or un-Islamic.

“People think that I’ve invented a new type of marriage. This is not true,” he said in an online video. “The part-time marriage exists in Egypt and many other Arab countries. Many people have applied it, but no one knows its name. Maybe it had no name. All what I did was naming it and attempting to explain it to people,” added Mahran, a family lawyer.

“The initiative is based on marrying off the divorced women to married men, who are well in terms of psychological and physical health as well as finances,” he said.

“There are 2.5 million divorcees in Egypt. They are mostly young women in their 20s and have children. Should we put them to death or throw them into the sea? They are humans, who have the right to continue to live,” he argued.

“The family in Egyptian society vehemently rejects allowing a son to marry a divorced woman. Therefore, we started thinking of solutions,” he said. “One solution is to encourage a married man, who can afford it, to marry a divorcee based on several conditions, mainly he stays with his new wife for one day a week,” Mahran added.

He confirmed that the so-called “part-time” marriage is based on consensual agreement and justice between the two-wives.

“Given that the second wife agrees to have the husband staying with her for one day every week, this agreement fulfils the stipulation of justice,” he said.

A prominent Muslim cleric saw nothing wrong with this type of marriage.

“We cannot prohibit or criminalise part-time marriage as long as it fulfils the terms and conditions of the marriage contract,” Ahmed Karima, a professor of comparative jurisprudence at the prestigious Al Azhar University was quoted as saying in the media.

“It does not belong to the temporary marriage, which is limited to one, two months or more and therefore it is invalid,” he added.

The scholar pointed out that basic stipulations of marriage in the Islamic Sharia law comprise consent from the two partners, public witnesses and a specified dowry. “Should these conditions be met, then the marriage conforms to the Sharia and results in mutual rights such as inheritance, good treatment and legitimate enjoyment.”

However, the proposal drew criticism from Dar Al Iftaa, Egypt’s top Islamic authority responsible for issuing religious fatwas or edicts.

The institution warned against such ideas, saying they are motivated by pursuit of showiness, fame and breach of values.

“Names made by some people referring to the part-time marriage and setting the condition of restricting it to a given portion of time invalidate the marriage contract,” the institution said. “Legal Sharia-compliant marriage must be based on continuity without being limited to a certain duration; otherwise, it will be a prohibited marriage.”

Legal experts, meanwhile, condemned Mahran’s notion and accused him of destabilising society. One of them is Ayman Mahfouz.

“This initiative is illegal and glaringly contradicts all laws that regulate marriage and citizens’ personal status,” Mahfouz told private newspaper Al Masry Al Youm. He warned that adopting the proposed marriage is illegal and liable to the law.

“The call for part-time marriage disrupts public peace and stirs confusion in society,” Mahfouz said. According to him, the author of this marriage could be jailed for a minimum of five years if convicted on these charges.

Another critic, Wael Negm, a lawyer, threatened to sue Mahran for propagating what he described as “rotten ideas aimed to ruin society and incite debauchery”.

So far, there has been no comment from justice authorities or women’s rights groups on the uproar.