Marriage Lebanese Style

Earlier this week, my assistant Rami asked for a half-day off today. Why? "I'm getting married," he casually replied. Being a sport, I told him to take the whole day.

I may sound like a slave driver for not sending him off on a lengthy honeymoon, but what Rami meant was that he was going to spend the morning at the Islamic court in Beirut to get legally married to his fiance, Hayat. By Muslim tradition in Lebanon, this is much less important than the wedding party, at which there are no special legal or religious ceremonies, but lots of friends and family members. In Lebanon, friends and family are certainly more important the the law, and possibly even God.

But God does have His place in Lebanese law, especially family law, which is administered by religious courts run by the country's 17 different recognized religious sects. In Lebanon, there is no such thing as civil marriage, so if you want to marry someone from a different sect, either one of you has to convert, or you have elope to Cyprus.

This posed no special obstacle for Rami and Hayat, both of whom are Sunni Muslims. But finding a mullah to perform the paperwork and the ritual suddenly got tough. The court had changed its rules so that marriage ceremonies may no longer be preformed at the courthouse, only in private homes (with an extra commission to the cleric for his troubles, naturally). No one bothered to tell Rami this until after he showed up with his fiance, brother, boss, and future father-in-law. Talk about pressure. But as always, Rami proved himself to be an excellent fixer, sweet-talking the sheik into making an exception, and into allowing me to take pictures. All this on his one day off!

The happy couple are waiting until the summer for the main event. But besides choosing the date (08/08/08 for good luck) Rami hasn't done any planning because I've had him busy on matters of high import such as faxing, filing, and unlocking my iPhone. Still, when the big day comes, he can have all the time he needs, and I promise not to bring my camera along on the honeymoon!

Mabrook, habibi!

--Andrew Lee Butters/Beirut