ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews a variety of legal aspects within the marriage ideal in Islam, presents some of the special characteristics of Islamic marriage and explores how they relate to cross-cultural unions. Ideally, the spirit of Islam is supposed to promote cohesion between Muslims despite any racial or cultural differences that may exist. In fact, Islamic marriage in general could be said to have a distinct patriarchal and patrilineal bias. In most Islamic Sunni societies a woman cannot contract a marriage on her own account but has to be given in marriage by a male guardian. There is no concept of joint property in Islam. A woman’s dower constitutes part of her private wealth together with other sources from inheritance or gifts of money. The exchange of women, in most cultures and throughout history, has been used to cement political and economic ties between groups of people.
