Saudi plans 'no marriage before marital training'

Saudi Arabia is planning to ban marriage before the wedding couples join a special training course on marital life and ways to overcome marriage problems in a bid to cut soaring divorce rates, the local press reported on Monday.

The conservative Gulf Kingdom, which has one of the world’s highest divorce rates, has already issued legislation stipulating wedding couples must produce a medical certificate showing they are in good health before they are allowed to marry.

“The cabinet is studying a draft law preventing any marriage before the couples pass a special training programme on marital life and ways to overcome any problems,” Saudi social affairs minister Yousef Al-Otheimeen.

“The new law will be enforced on an optional basis in the first phase before it becomes mandatory as was the case with the condition for medical reports,” he told the papers.

Saudi Arabia, the largest Arab economy, has one of the highest divorce rates, with an average 66 divorce cases a day in 2011.

“An average 66 divorce cases were recorded daily in Saudi Arabia in 2011 and this is a very serious indicator that threatens the local society,” Iftikhar Dahneem, a well-known Saudi social expert said in a recent study.

She said the main causes of the high rate include the wrong choice of the spouse, an educational gap, differences in habits and poor understanding of marital duties. Other factors include negligence, disregard of either spouse, violence, and disputes.

Official data showed nearly 148,000 couples tied the knot in Saudi Arabia in 2011 but 31,000 were divorced. “This means there was an average 406 marriages a day against 85 divorce cases,” said a report by the Saudi Ministry of Justice.

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