Md. Rizwanul Islam writes for DOT :
Let us assume that X, a young man from a remote village, settles in a southern district in Bangladesh in the course of his employment in an NGO in a remote part of an eastern district in Bangladesh. Let us further assume that he succeeds in seducing Y, a lady from the locality in which he works. Then the acting prowess of X is so good that he convinces Y and his family that his conservative family would not give consent to a marriage where the bride and bridegroom have themselves fixed it, but once the marriage is solemnised, they would calm down and things would eventually be settled. Then after the marriage, Y comes to know that ‘innocent’ X has a first wife living in his village home. While this type of scenario may be rare, they are not unheard of. This write-up seeks to show that this kind of marriage-related deception and another challenge of regulating polygamous marriage could somewhat be addressed by the introduction of an online marriage registry database in Bangladesh.
Polygamy for Muslim males in this country through restricted since the introduction of the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance, 1961, (MFLO); often the law failed to tame polygamous marriage to any meaningful degree. There is some misconception about the legal intervention on Islamic Shariah law on polygamy introduced by this MFLO. Some people have a wrong conception that under this law, without the consent of the existing wife/wives, a subsequent marriage by a Muslim husband would be void. Indeed, the correct position of the law is that although the husband would be punishable with simple imprisonment up to one year, or with fine up to ten thousand takas, or with both and the entire amount of the dower due to the existing wife or wives, if not already paid, would be recoverable as arrears of land revenue. Thus, the MFLO gives the existing wife/wives the right to recover dower i.e. as a public demand under the Public Demands Recovery Act, 1913. Despite these, the MFLO does not touch upon the validity of the second/subsequent marriage by a Muslim male simply because it is a polygamous marriage solemnised without the consent of the existing wife/wives. It only makes the husband to be punished for committing an offence of not obtaining the permission of the existing wife/wives and the Arbitration Council as formed under the Law.
Some women rights activists in this country have sought an amendment to this legal provision on polygamy. Some of them have advocated for making polygamy a punishable offence irrespective of the consent of the existing wife/wives or Arbitration Council. They tend to argue that the permission of the existing/wives can hardly be free. Some others argue that the grounds on which the Arbitration Council may give permission for polygamy to be performed may be specified so that this permission is not granted on whims. Analysing the merits and demerits of these arguments is beyond the scope of this write-up, but at least on one point their argument co-relates to the issue discussed here.
Our existing paper-based marriage registry system is so arcane that third parties would find it extremely difficult to know about the marital status of a person. Indeed, it may be safely said that the current registry system is mainly for the spouses to document the marriage, use it for their mutual recognition, and help them in identify their rights and duties after the dissolution of marriage by death of one of the parties or otherwise. The registry system in the current form would hardly protect unsuspecting ladies from being defrauded by a person hiding his existing marriage/marriage. Hence, simply making polygamous marriages by Muslim males void without further reform in the law may not have its desired impact. Indeed, nullifying the second/subsequent marriage without ready access to the information contained in the marriage registers scattered across the offices of Nikah Registrars across the country may cause greater hardship to the second/third/fourth wife who may be totally unaware of the first or prior marriage/s of the husband. This may be addressed by making a central online database of marriages which could be accessible to the Nikah Registrars free of cost and any member of the public upon the payment of a nominal fee.
If we consider the existing national identity card database which is used for so many matters in our everyday life: mobile registration, bank account opening, job applications, application for a passport and what not, it may be argued that the online registry of marriages may help the prevention of fraud in marriage related matters. The investment required for running the database may come from the revenue earned by the government from the registration fee levied on the registration of marriages and divorces.
* Dr Islam is an Associate Professor at Department of Law, North South University.