Moroccan tribes refuse to register marriages

Unofficial, or urfi, marriages are common among Moroccan tribes

Fes, MOROCCO (Khadeeja al-Fathi)

With the approach of the deadline to register unofficial marriages fast approaching, Moroccan officials are urging families in tribal areas to submit their requests but are facing resistance from some tribes who view the registration as a waste of time and money.

The Moroccan Ministry of Justice is carrying out a campaign in tribal areas urging families to submit their requests to the court before the February deadline. has set the registration deadline for February set for unofficial marriages to be registered, the authorities. Many tribes, however, view official marriage registration as an unnecessary burden and as an infringement on their customs.

Unofficial marriages in Morocco can trigger several social and ethical problems, according to Abdullah al-Hamoumi, head of the Lawyers Syndicate for Fes. With no official marriage documentation parents put the status of their children at risk, he told AlArabiya.net.

Children of unofficial, or urfi, marriages are legally equated with illegitimate children since in both cases there no official document and creates problems issuing birth certificates or enrolling in school.

"Moroccan courts are looking at many cases of that type," Hamoumi added.

There are two dimensions from which to interpret unofficial marriages, according to sociologist Aziz Meshwat. The first and more basic dimension is the long-established tradition where marriage represents a social ceremony validated through making the union known to everyone in the community.

The second dimension is the urfi marriage concept that was imported to the Arab Maghreb from the Arab Mashreq, or Western region.

"Some tribes in the Atlas and other remote areas resist all modernization attempts by the state and inherit the custom of marriage without contract, and the marriage is only validated by 12 witnesses from the tribe and an announcement," Meshwat told AlArabiya.net

Some fundamentalists resort to the second type, urfi marriages, as part of their rebellion against society and the state, which they consider illegitimate, said Meshwat.

Feminist and head of the Women Solidarity Organization Aisha al-Shanna told AlArabiya.net that many of the urfi marriage cases she deals with come from couples with Salafi backgrounds, and that women will often refuse to say who the fathers of their children are.

"This marriage was done through reading a verse from the Quran after which the women tells the man, 'I marry you,' and the husband refuses to have a contract under the pretext that he does not acknowledge the legitimacy of the state," explained Shanna.

But she also noted that women were more forthcoming with that information following the deadly terrorist attacks in Casablanca in May 2003.


(Translated from Arabic by Sonia Farid).