Advice from a Moroccan man

Submitted by Farid H. (Germany), May 9, 2007 at 22:18

Hi Anne and fiona. I'm a Moroccan man who grew up in a mixed-nationality and mixed-confession secular family in Rabat in the 1970-ies and 1980-ies. My parent's marriage is a happy one (with the usual non-violent arguments between husband and wife that happen every now and then like in every other family in the world). They're now both in their early seventies, and still married. Yet I'd like to share some advice, because there are some intercultural traps that you need to be aware of. You can skip the section that's not relevant to you if you want.

1. If you plan to move to Morocco and live there with your spouse: Here, you'll need to be aware of two possible legal traps that could bite you:

a.) If you get divorced, family courts will, according to the Moudawana of 2004, customarily grant custody of the children to the mother, irrespective of their or her religion. BUT you'll still need a written permission from the father if you want to take the children out of the country. You can always travel abroad without permission (either as wife or ex-wife), but children under 18 can't without father's consent. This is also true for children bearing dual-nationality; and every child of a moroccan father is automatically moroccan citizen. So beware of this.

b.) The second trap that you can fall into, is w.r.t. heritage laws. In Morocco, we're still stuck with a sharia-compatible heritage law that discriminates against women in general, and if you're not Muslim, you're facing the near 100% possibility of getting nothing in case of heritage (your children would, if there were legally declared Muslim - they don't need to be believers, it's a legal/civil aspect, no more). This is in particular a problem when it comes to pensions. You'll get hard pressed to get the RCAR or a similar pension organism to pay widow's pension in case your husband passed away. Sure, when you're in love and marry, thinking of divorce or death is not natural; but life is as it is.

Then there's another sign to watch for, which is not legal, but psychological and a possible tell-tale of trouble to come: if your husband/fiancee or his family have already persistently tried to convince you to convert to Islam, beware! I'm not talking about a harmless casual remark ("why won't you convert?") told in a joke, but when you're getting the impression that it's important to them. In such a case, I'd be extremely careful if I were in your position.

Nothing in Islam is requiring them to talk you out of your religion and into theirs. If they did and still do nonetheless, you could get into deep trouble later; because that would show a lack of respect for what YOU are and what YOU stand for. Can you verify your husband's take on this by trying to find out how he'd like your children to be raised? Secularly? Islam? Will they be allowed to go to Church as well or is it okay with him that you teach them in addition to Islam also, say, Christianity?

If you're sure he's not having any problems with that, then you may be safe - though people change over time, so you'll never be quite sure.

2. If your spouse plans to move to your country and live there with you: Of course, green card scams or similar visa-related fraud is the main thing to watch for. You'll certainly know that Morocco's emigration rate and diaspora towards Europe, Canada and the US are huge and economically driven. It's not unheard of that many men would try to marry foreigners to get a visa.

If you have a hint that this may be the case, then it may be best to steer clear of him - or at least confront him openly with what you've found out. If you're in love, it's easy to go easy on things like a lover or fiancee who's telling you that he's short of money and that he'd like to study (or find a job etc...); so may you please help him out? In some cases, it's genuine and the guy is nothing but good-natured.

But before MARRYING men without a secured job and income, you should really think very seriously about it, just as you would with local men. Here too, scams are all to frequent. It's certainly nice to be in love, to flirt etc...; but when it comes to something as fundamental as marriage, you can't turn a blind eye on economic realities.

All in all, I wish both of you good luck!

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