The justice department, when it comes to matters of the Bearded Folk, has the patience of Job.
The deadline for comments on the Muslim Marriages Bill has been extended — again. It’s not that “maximum participation” isn’t admirable, but the first draft was published over a decade ago.
The department, and indeed the Cabinet, don’t seem to know who they are dealing with here. Monotheists love “consultation”. It’s God-speak for dragging things out. After all, one of the explosive proposals contained in this Bill is giving equal rights to women.
It took two years for a similar form of remedial legislation, the Recognition of African Customary Marriages Act, to pass into the statute books. And yet a law with consequences for a relatively tiny fraction of the population has taken more than a decade to craft.
Consultation has its limits. The consensus the department seeks is probably utopian. Just when things seem to be on the right track, some Muslim fringe group will drag the debate back to the beginning. Given their proclivity for debates over whether water is halaal or not, or the best sharia punishment for cartoonists, such foot-dragging should come as no surprise.
What is surprising is that the state panders to groups who keep shifting the goalposts, crying foul and yelling abuse from the sidelines — while much time and vast sums of money are spent on costly litigation every time a Muslim woman has to turn to the courts to enforce her rights to her children, to be fed and clothed, or to leave her husband.
Despite wide consultation, and the Bill’s egalitarian implications, the most worrying aspect of it is that it unintentionally vests ultimate authority over Muslim women’s and children’s lives in the clergy. It is they who will rubber-stamp the credentials of the marriage officer. In matters of Muslim religion there is no escaping the clergy. And in a faith where interpretation is linked to fluency in a foreign language (Arabic), Muslim marriages will be micromanaged forever.
The only way to ensure women aren’t short-changed by Muslim law is to educate them about antenuptial contracts. Accompanying civil ceremonies for Muslim marriages should be compulsory. The state, not the Beaded Folk, is best suited to be — and should be — the ultimate guardian and defender of women’s rights.
Khadija Bradlow is a freelance journalist