Interfaith Marriages and the Tension between Religious and State Law – Considering the Examples of Israel, Lebanon and Tunisia

This monograph project deals with interfaith marriages in North Africa and the Near Middle East. At the centre of the study are three countries: Israel, Lebanon and Tunisia. These states illustrate three different situations regarding the interpersonal legal dichotomy or legal pluralism: legal pluralism with priority given to Judaism (Israel); legal pluralism with equality bestowed on all recognized religious faiths (Lebanon); and legal uniformity with priority given to Islam (Tunisia).

With the exception of Tunisia, family and succession law in these countries is non-uniform and varies depending on the underlying religion – citizens are subject to the religious law of their respective faiths. The religious law of the monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam forbids marriage to individuals of a different faith. In Tunisia, where family and succession law is uniform, certain interfaith marriages are deemed void in administrative and judicial practice. A segment of the study details the historical development of the legal treatment of interfaith marriages in these three monotheistic faiths. Thus, the inquiry demonstrates that a marriage between a Muslim woman and a non-Muslim man was forbidden only after the migration of the Prophet from Mecca. Similarly, in Jewish law marriage was initially forbidden only between Jews and Canaanites, the ban being extended to all non-Jews only later.

One emphasis of the study is inspired by the question of whether the legal treatment of interfaith marriages can be reconciled with human rights law, which is upheld in the constitutions of these three countries, as well as with the international conventions they have ratified. A second emphasis is a consideration of the effect of the pertinent rules on legal certainty. In this regard, Gallala-Arndt is of the opinion that the currently existing treatment of interfaith marriages is a source of tension between the respective state legal orders and the aspirations of the involved interest groups, and that this in turn has yielded inconsistencies within the legal systems that significantly impair legal uniformity and obscure legal clarity. Further consideration is given to the question of how the interlocking of law and religion at the state level affects private law relations within families.