The big question of Muslim and Christian marriage in Senegal

In the wake of a recent Senegalese mass wedding that featured minors, it would appear that nuptial laws in the West African country border can sometimes border on the liberal. But for inter-religious marriages, this is not so.

With an overwhelming Muslim population of about 95 per cent, Senegal still remains a secular state, but marriage between Christians and Muslims is punctuated by several obstacles.
Christians are forced to become converts to Islam before getting married to Muslims, while some families outrightly shun their children who convert for nuptials.

But in many Christian homes, this conditionality is optional, giving ground to Muslim women, especially, to chose either to convert or maintain their religion.

Dialogue established
The Islamo-Christian dialogue established by the two religions to help reduce the gap and encourage tolerance between the two faiths see this disposition as sensitive and hence, have done little or nothing to remove the hurdle.

But it is common to see European or American Christians getting married to Senegalese Muslim women, while strictly respecting the dictates of Islam: that the non-Muslim groom goes to the mosque with a bride price of about five dollars and a kilogramme or two of kola nuts.

Then in some cases, the erstwhile Christian groom’s first name is changed to a Muslim one like Mohamed, Issa, Abdul, and so on and warned to desist from taking alcohol, in keeping with Islamic teachings.

Formality
Many of the intermarriages, mostly between Muslim Senegalese women and American or European men, have been recently considered as purely a formality for the women to have the opportunity to travel to the countries of their husbands and are mostly separated shortly afterwards even before the birth of their first child.

It is for this reason that former colonial ruler France, especially, has over the last decade passed a law that Frenchmen marrying Senegalese women should reside in Senegal for not less than two years before migrating to France.

In a seeming trend, most of the European and/or American men wishing to have an honest and sincere marriage to Senegalese women go for girls from the predominantly Christian southern region of Casamance.

This is mostly for several reasons: Because they are believed to be less materialistic, sincere partners and mostly with Christian upbringing.

But on the question of dumping alcohol and accepting a Muslim name, that could be just a formality because many of the European or American husbands return home with the spouses and restore their first names. It is even often said that some tend to forget their new Muslim names.

Hurdles
In Senegal, only founding President Leopold Sedar Senghor was a Christian and married to a Christian woman, Collette, from France.
His predecessor, Abdou Diouf is a Muslim but married to a Christian woman, who was not forced to convert to Islam but maintains her Christian denomination to date.

Similarly, the third President, Abdoulaye Wade, is a Muslim and also married to a French and Christian woman, Viviane, and they have lived together for nearly 50 years.

The incumbent and fourth President, Macky Sall, is Muslim as is his wife, Marieme Faye, whom the public still finds difficult to call her by her husband’s surname.

Many of the intermarriages have faced a lot of difficulties either because the husband, who was originally a Christian and converted to Islam, finds it difficult to divorce alcohol or tends to have an inclination towards Christianity.

The same is often the case of Christian or Muslim women married to Muslim husbands or Muslim women married to Christian husbands.

Advantaged men
But as in other countries, divorce is also very common in Senegal and for this reason, many women have and continue to maintain their family names and add their husband’s family names when they get married.

Hence, it is common to hear Senegalese calling the First Lady, Madam Marieme Faye Sall. While the divorce process is relatively sophisticated and methodical among Christians, Muslim men only require less than a minute to kick out their spouses.

Muslim husbands in Senegal only need to repeat the word: “I divorce you (the wife)” three times and it is enough for the wedlock to be considered officially terminated.

So women married to Muslim husbands break down in tears as soon as the husband pronounces the words for the first time. Some of the men stop in between to throw a strong signal to the wife, while others rush to the third pronouncement on the very first attempt.