A battle of ideas over the issue of divorce has raged between various Christian ideologues for the last three years. Competing interests, theological divide, desire of establishing supremacy within and outside the community and grievances of individuals due to the inhumane nature of the current Christian family laws have made this battle complex. Consensus is, however, emerging among progressive religious leaders and rights activists.

Pakistani Christians, who account for only about 1.59 percent of the population, are more vocal for religious freedom than any other religious minority. But many of them are unwilling to consider equality and freedom of spouses in the matter of divorce.

The debate on religious interpretation on the issue of divorce started in May 2016 when Lahore High Court ruled in Ameen Masih case decided that matters related to Christian marriage and divorce could be decided under the British Matrimonial Causes Act. The debate turned intense after the federal government in August announced that it would table the Christian Marriage and Divorce Bill, 2019, in the upcoming session of the National Assembly.

The draft is based on the recommendations provided by the Church Drafting Committee, constituted by Senator Kamran Michael in August 2016 when he was the federal minister for human rights. The committee, consisting of Christian clergy and women rights defenders, prepared drafts to amend the British-era Divorce Act 1869 and Christian Marriage Act 1872 that currently govern the Pakistani Christians of all denominations, including Catholics.

On one side of the spectrum is the bulk of the Christians and clergymen who are suspicious of the government bill, believing it challenges and interferes with biblical teachings. On the other side of the spectrum are a handful of people who believe that Christian marriage and divorce should be treated exclusively in "the domain of civil law".

Unlike what many Pakistani Catholics believe, there is no possibility of divorce among Catholics even in the case of adultery. For most Protestants, marriage is not a sacrament. They disagree even on the precise definition of a sacrament. However, not knowing their denominational stand, most of the Pakistani Christians think marriage is a sacrament and adultery is the only possible ground for divorce.

Denominational divide on divorce

The Anglican Communion started in 1530s when King Henry VIII wanted to divorce his wife Catherine of Aragon for not producing a surviving male heir to the throne. Pope Clement VII, accused of being an "illegitimate" child and under the influence of Catherine’s nephew Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, refused to annul Henry’s marriage. The defection of England played a major role in the English Reformation and the thriving of Protestantism subsequently.

Christianity spread in our land after the British conquered the provinces of Sindh and the Punjab in 1830s and 1840s. The British rulers, following English ecclesiastical morality, enforced the Christian Marriage Act 1872 and Christian Divorce Act 1869 in India that currently govern Christians in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

The spread of Christianity was largely through the en masse conversion among a most downtrodden caste in the Punjab through American Presbyterian missionaries. Today, almost all Pakistani Christians are from this downtrodden background but most of them do not follow the Presbyterian faith.

By 1911, Catholics were only 6 percent of the Christian population in the Punjab and by 1949 they were about 25 percent of the West Pakistan population but in later years their numbers grew. For Catholics, marriage is a sacrament: once it is consummated and confirmed, nothing can reverse it. The only possibility is declaring marriage void from the beginning if it took place within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity.

Over the last four decades, a third influential denominational group has emerged.

The non-hierarchical, often non-liturgical and having epicentres of the movement in the US, Evangelicals have grown three times faster than the world population. Today, every fourth person among the 2 billion Christians is a follower of Evangelism. In Pakistan, their percentage is probably higher. Thousands of evangelical household churches have emerged across Pakistan, which has dramatically decreased attendance in Catholic and other "mainline" churches. Followers of these churches are less strict, and vary in their opinions on divorce.

Many of Evangelists hold that divorce is only possible on ground of adultery. However, the Principal of Full Gospel Assemblies of Pakistan, the largest evangelical body, Dr Liaquat Qaiser has said Jesus was pro-women when he advocated divorce only on the ground of adultery. During Jesus’s time, some Jewish schools of thought taught that a husband could divorce his wife "if she burned his soup … or spoiled a dish for him. [Or] if he should find a woman fairer than his wife."

Dr Qaiser says that St. Paul has taught that "if an unbeliever spouse abandons then the believer spouse is not bound anymore.""The biblical marriage is between one man and one woman "perfectly suited to one another, joined in an intimate, exclusive, safe and life-long partnership". Dr Qaiser considered the highest authority on the Pentecostal belief in Pakistan, told TNS "all marriages, sadly, do not live up to this biblical standard. Worse, many wives are subjected to torturous and abusive life.The church needs to decide how to deal with this situation."

Emerging consensus over Christian personal laws:

The Church Drafting Committee constituted by Kamran Michael in August 2016 was provided secretarial help by the National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP), a rights organization working under the Catholic Bishops’ Conference in Pakistan. The committee submitted its draft to the Ministry of Human Rights in April 2018. The observations sent to the Human Rights Ministry by the Church Drafting Committee on the current government bill are endorsed by many churches including the Catholic Church and main Protestant denominations.

The National Lobbying Delegation for Minority Rights, a group consisting of 24 members from Hindu, Sikh and Christian members, through its advocacy campaign from policymakers to the grassroots level, has lobbied for the adoption of these amendment drafts.

Bishop of Multan, Leo Rodrick Paul, who heads the committee, says the current bill is based on the amendment drafts proposed by the committee. For example, the current law allows marriage of those younger than eighteen years of age. It does not allow marriage after dusk. The Divorce Act not just requires proving adultery on wife’s part but also wants the husband to implicate the "co-adulterer" and demand damages from him. Importantly, men and women are not equal before this law, which is in contradiction with the Constitution of Pakistan and international conventions that Pakistan has signed.

"The committee had addressed such issues but did not demand an altogether new law. But now we have reviewed the government draft and have identified inconsistencies which we have mailed to the ministry," Paul tells TNS.

Way forward

The state has a responsibility to reform the Christian personal laws. At the same time, side-lining the religious leadership and looking for a complete civil code will not be acceptable. Pakistani Hindus are governed by Hindu Marriage Act 2017, Sikhs are governed by Punjab Sikhs Anand Karaj Marriages Act 2017, Parsees are governed by Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act 1936 and Muslims are governed by Muslim Family Law Ordinance 1961. When every other religious community is governed by their own personal laws it would be a constitutional discrimination to impose a civil marriage on Christians alone.

None of the religious leaders or human rights voices within the community are willing to let the government introduce a civil marriage for Christians.  A "civil marriage", in a typical context, simply means a civil union between two persons officiated by a government official, without a religious ceremony.The British-era Christian personal laws in India and Bangladesh have only been amended, not revoked.

Former Human Rights Minister Kamran Michael, the Punjab Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW), the Punjab Strategic Reforms Unit, National Lobbying Delegation for Minority Rights, NCJP, the Christian Study Centre(CSC) and many other denominations and women rights organisations worked to build momentum for reforming these laws.

The government should capitalise on this moment and not create more confusion by introducing unnecessary changes in the drafts submitted by the Church Drafting Committee.