JEDDAH: When a Saudi wants to marry a non-Saudi, he or she must first obtain a marriage permit from the Ministry of Interior. This can take months, even years. Regrettably, some immoral Saudi men are using this as an excuse to marry expatriate women without officially registering their marriages.
In such a scenario, the man tells the family that he has applied for a permit and that it will take some time for it to be issued. He then convinces the family that the marriage should take place at the earliest opportunity rather than waiting for the permit. Having gained the family’s full trust, the man gets married. No sheikh who is registered with the Saudi authorities will agree to the marriage of a Saudi to a non-Saudi without a legal permit. There are, however, some unregistered expatriate sheikhs who will. Such marriages are legal according to Islamic law, but not under Saudi law. Women who marry in this way usually lose their legal rights as wives under Saudi law. After a few months of marriage, many husbands abandon their wives or divorce them without being obligated by law to pay them compensation or alimony. And since the wife is not legally registered, there is little a woman can do to claim her rights.
“My husband bef-riended my father and brothers for months before asking for my hand in marriage,” said R.I. “We never thought for a second that he could be lying when he said he had applied for a permit. We trusted him. He was very eager to marry. He seemed like the best son-in-law any family could have.”
R.I. added that not long after the marriage, her husband’s behavior changed. He soon admitted he had not applied at all and had no intention of legalizing the marriage. “He dropped me off at my family’s home and then divorced me over the phone.”
According to legal consultant Mohammed Saeed Tayib, illegal marriages are on the rise. “There are just too many,” he said. “The problem here is because there are no legal documents to prove the marriage it cannot be proven in a court of law,” he added. Tayib said that if the marriage occurred abroad, then there are legal channels through which the marriage can be legalized in the Kingdom. But if it occurred in the Kingdom without a marriage permit, then there is little that can be done. “Woman trapped in such a situation — where her husband has abandoned her without divorce and she cannot turn to the law — cannot claim to be a legal wife,” he said. “However, there are religious bonds that cannot be ignored. A woman in such a situation can turn to Shariah for help. She can return to the sheikh who conducted the marriage, tell him that her husband has abandoned her and ask him to get her a divorce according to Islamic law,” he added.
But this does not entitle her to get alimony from her husband. Tayib said that if there are children then the matter is different. “The presence of children changes the status of the marriage. In such a scenario a wife can go to court and file a case after which the matter can be legally investigated. The party that was victimized will be compensated,” he said, adding that there are no penalties for getting married without a permit.
