Marriage at Ministry of Justice, Cairo on 14 Jan 2008

Post by **Parisgirl** » Sun Jan 27, 2008 10:25 pm

Hi

I hope this helps anyone planning on getting married at the Ministry of Justice in Cairo. My Egyptian husband and I were married on Monday 14 January 2008. I set out below from start to finish all the information I can provide. Please contact me if you need any further information and I will try and help.

Please note if you have already been married you need to get your Decree Absolute legalised at Whitehall. The address and information on how to do this is provided on the British Embassy website. It costs about Â£33. You cannot get married in Cairo without your Decree Absolute being legalised.

Also before leaving the UK get certified copies of your passport from a solicitor. These are photocopies of your passport which a qualified solicitor will stamp and sign to say it is an exact copy of the original. You will need about two copies.

Sunday 13 January. We went to the British Embassy in Garden City to do our Statutory Declaration. You do not need to make an appointment - we just turned up. Note the opening hours on the British Embassy website before going. If I remember rightly, they close at 1330 hours. We went up to the Consular section of the Embassy and had to complete a form. It basically asked for passport information, yours and his, place of birth, fiance's name - the usual stuff. If you have your birth certificates and passports with you, you will have all the information to hand to complete this form. The fee was 1010 Egyptian Pounds. This has to be paid in Egyptian pounds cash - you cannot pay by credit card. Once you have paid your fee and handed in the completed form you will be given an appointment time for the following day to collect your Statutory Declaration.

Next you need to go to the Mogamma Building to (1) buy a stamp for your marriage certificate and (2) to get a residency stamp valid for one month in your passport. The Mogamma building is still open. It is located in a large square named Midan at-Tahrir (as-Sadat). This is where the American University is situated. If you look on a map of Cairo and his the American University, the Mogamma building is across the road towards the Nile River as you look at the map. When you are in Midan at-Tahrir square, the Mogamma building is a huge tall moon shaped building. I have given you this location information as we spent about two hours walking around being given conflicting directions until we found it completely by accident. The residency stamp for one month can be obtained by going to the first floor. At the top of the stairs go through the doorway on the right. Once through security turn right again and go to the end of the corridor. You will then be in a long corridor full of numbered windows. About 6 windows along there is a window labelled "Lost Passports". I got my residency stamp at this window. I cannot help on where in this corridor to find the stamp for your marriage certificate and my husband came on his own to get that.

Please note you cannot get married without this residency stamp in your passport. The British Embassy advice will tell you you do not need residency requirements - they are wrong, you do.

Also on this day you should obtain two copies of the following:
Passports - yours and his. You should already have obtained certified copies of your passport before leaving the UK.
His Egyptian ID - 2 copies
Copy of the page in your passport with the Residency stamp in it - 2 copies
Decree Absolute (both sides of this document) - 2 copies

These copies will be needed at the Ministry of Justice when you get married.

Monday 14 January. Go to the British Embassy at your appointment time to collect your Statutory Declaration.

Next take a taxi to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Ahmed Orabi Street, Mohandessin, Cairo (Tel. 33033450). You need to get the Consular Officer's signature and stamp on the Statutory Declaration for it to be legalised. The fee is approximately 22 Egyptian pounds and with a little Backsheesh (bribe) to one of the locals you can get this done in about 10 minutes.

You can now go to Ministry of Justice building in Lazoghly Square, 4th floor, Cairo for your civil marriage ceremony. Please note do not dress up for this ceremony. The building is quite grotty and you have to sit with everyone else in a waiting room and wait to take your turn. Again a little Backsheesh (sorry about the spelling here) and you could get seen a bit quicker.

After you have got married, you will probably be told that it will be between 7-10 days before you can collect your marriage certificates. A 400 Egyptian pound bribe (backsheesh) here got the certificates to us in 2 days!!!!!!

Once you have collected your marriage certificates (2 in total) you need to again take them to 57 Ramses Street for a stamp.

After you have got this stamp you need to take them to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ahmed Orabi Street, Mohandessin for yet another stamp. Again one of the locals helped out and this only took 10 minutes to complete.

Everything is now complete.

If you are putting in a visa application after you are married, get ALL the documents you will be including in your visa application translated into English. The British Embassy are quite adamant about this and any application submitted without translations attached could be refused. In our visa application we included his contract of employment, his school and university exam certificates, his birth certificate, his army information and of course the Marriage Certificates. I can recommend the following translator: J Marcou & Co, Bureau de Traduction, 36 Rue Cherif, Centre Ville, Cairo. Tel (202) 3929700. If you pay a little extra you can get your translations back in about 2-3 days. They were very professional and I was extremely pleased with the quality and time taken of the work they did for us.

Good luck

Post by **Tripitaka** » Mon May 04, 2009 9:48 pm

Thank you Parisgirl, very informative.

I have one question, I donâ€™t know if this is the right place to post it, but it seems appropriate.

If this marriage is legally binding in both countries and can be registered in the UK; is there any checks made on the mans marital status?
Ie, If he is already married to an Egyptian, is he legally allowed to marry again under British Law?

Sorry, this may be a stupid question, but I cant find the answer!

And before anyone startsâ€¦.I am NOT getting married, I am just curious.

Post by **Kronkite** » Mon May 04, 2009 10:25 pm

NO he can't marry under british law cos he already has a wife and UK is not a polygamus country

Post by **Tripitaka** » Mon May 04, 2009 11:34 pm

Thanks, thats what I thought, but as ever conflicting advice flys around.

I have seen info about 'other wives' not being able to join men married in UK, its on the immigration site, but couldnt get an ultimate answer.

Post by **Winged Isis** » Tue May 05, 2009 3:07 am

Wow! Many thanks for such a comprehensive post PG! As we seem to e heading in that direction, my husband I will definitely take a copy of this with us when we venture up to the big smoke. Better than Lonely Planet!

I will of course make enquiries re the differences for Aussies.

Post by **Glyphdoctor** » Tue May 05, 2009 4:55 am

I know there is definitely one difference that might apply to the second wife thing between the UK and other countries. The UK before giving its citizens the certificate that they are free to marry expects the spouse to make an appearance and if he is already married they won't give you the paper required. Jane can tell you more about this.

The American government does not do this, or at least when I got married they did not care who I was marrying. They neither asked nor required any information about who I was marrying. The paper they provided stated that I was free to marry and made no mention of anyone else.

In any case, if the man is already married, that should be indicated on his id card, which he will need to present when you marry. Any previous marriages, current or past, should be noted on the marriage certificate, or at least there was space for it on the form when I got married (neither of us had been married so it wasn't an issue anyway). Again, the marriage license form has changed since then so I don't have the latest information.

Post by **drwho** » Tue May 05, 2009 8:00 am

Phew, after all that palaver, well good things take time eh..?

Post by **Glyphdoctor** » Tue May 05, 2009 8:06 am

We could have done everything in less than 24 hours back in the day, and my husband only tipped the maazoon 20LE when we married in the afternoon and we got our copies of the license the next morning!

Post by **Jane Akshar** » Tue May 05, 2009 1:37 pm

Glyphdoctor wrote:I know there is definitely one difference that might apply to the second wife thing between the UK and other countries. The UK before giving its citizens the certificate that they are free to marry expects the spouse to make an appearance and if he is already married they won't give you the paper required. Jane can tell you more about this.

The American government does not do this, or at least when I got married they did not care who I was marrying. They neither asked nor required any information about who I was marrying. The paper they provided stated that I was free to marry and made no mention of anyone else.

In any case, if the man is already married, that should be indicated on his id card, which he will need to present when you marry. Any previous marriages, current or past, should be noted on the marriage certificate, or at least there was space for it on the form when I got married (neither of us had been married so it wasn't an issue anyway). Again, the marriage license form has changed since then so I don't have the latest information.

That is correct most countries will not give the female a certificate of no objection if the male is already married. Except the Americans where the male does not even have to turn up at the embassy.

Post by **Glyphdoctor** » Tue May 05, 2009 1:59 pm

The reason being that the US Federal Government has absolutely no legal jurisdiction over marriages. That right belongs solely to the individual states.

Post by **Tripitaka** » Tue May 05, 2009 9:52 pm

Of course, there are many 'strange' marriage arrangements in the US. (depending on ones cultural or religious beliefs!!)

I guess because many of our laws and ideology comes from the Romans still in the UK, we hold those values. (as a nation)

Interesting though

Post by **Glyphdoctor** » Tue May 05, 2009 10:15 pm

Bigamy is not allowed in any state in the US, but the thing is the national government has no say in the matter so that it can't stop someone from marrying two abroad. It is even possible to marry two in the same state or within the US and get away with it because different jurisdictions don't share marriage records, even though it is illegal to do so.

My uncle actually married his third wife overseas without having divorced his second. They had split up and she had gone back to her country and he had been working overseas and so there was really no jurisdiction for him to divorce her in at the time (as you can only divorce normally in a state in which you reside), but somehow he managed to marry his third wife in Korea and move with her to 2 or 3 more countries before suddenly being recalled to the States with her in tow. He managed to get himself out of the mess somehow and got her permanent residency. I guess since he hadn't married her in any state he had not violated any state laws.

Post by **PRchick** » Wed May 06, 2009 5:08 am

True, he would not be considered married to her but still married to the second wife.

Post by **PRchick** » Wed May 06, 2009 5:09 am

Tripitaka wrote:Of course, there are many 'strange' marriage arrangements in the US.

??? what are they?

Post by **Lelseybb2** » Wed May 06, 2009 11:36 am

Thanks for the great info. We are planning to marry in Cairo and you have answered a lot of questions that were running through my head, and unable to get clarified.

Post by **JOJO** » Wed May 06, 2009 12:12 pm

I would like to think of myself as a very modern thinking person but I really cannot get my head around this '2nd' wife thing!
Sack the Cultural differences and the excuses of he has to have an Egyptian wife to please the family.
The Egyptian wives are women with feelings, women who in the Egyptian society seem to have no choice but to respect their husbands wishes.
Would European 2nd wives even contemplate doing that to a fellow European woman whether legal or not?- Hell no because they know they'd get a dam good pasting

It makes no difference whether they lead seperate married lives with their shared husbands- that's not showing respect or sparing the Egyptian wifes feelings.
As far as I am concerned the only reason that they are getting away with it is because there really isn't very much the Egyptian women can do about it., which leads me to the conclusion that these 2nd wives (although would never admit to it) see these Egyptian women as inferior to them!

Post by **Glyphdoctor** » Wed May 06, 2009 12:45 pm

JOJO wrote: Would European 2nd wives even contemplate doing that to a fellow European woman whether legal or not?- Hell no because they know they'd get a dam good pasting

As far as I am concerned the only reason that they are getting away with it is because there really isn't very much the Egyptian women can do about it., which leads me to the conclusion that these 2nd wives (although would never admit to it) see these Egyptian women as inferior to them!

JoJo-Yes European women do it all the time to one another, it's called an affair.

On the other hand, I do think you have a point that they do see them as inferior or at least serving a different purpose from themselves and that is probably why they don't see it as a threat to have a cowife who is Egyptian. As **** put it in another thread, the Egyptian wife exists to cook, clean, bear children and take care of his elderly parents.

Maybe that means the European wife doesn't have to do all those things herself for her husband (although Islamically she is supposed to be cleaning his underwear at least when he is sleeping with her!) but what is left then for her to do, bring home the proverbial bacon? Bringing home the bacon may be a respected thing for a woman to do in European society and she may abhor housework and doing the chores may be a respected thing in Egyptian society for a woman unlike working outside the home and from that perspective maybe each one is doing what they want to do, but these dual wives situations are usually in Egypt and therefore the foreign woman is giving everyone the impression that she is worthless for everything that a woman is normally valued for and is only good for something that while a lot of people in Luxor value it for financial reasons, they have little respect for it either and certainly most Egyptians outside of Luxor would look on these foreign women and their husbands and their arrangement with scorn.

And how many European wives with European husbands do all those chores and bring home bacon as well? As I said in another thread that was shut down, many women, European as well as Egyptian, do all these things and take pride in the fact that they are capable of being everything he needs from a wife all in one package.

Post by **Ashtree0** » Wed May 06, 2009 5:05 pm

[quote ......... many women, European as well as Egyptian, do all these things and take pride in the fact that they are capable of being everything he needs from a wife all in one package.[/quote]

Now this is the bit that I don't get - everything that HE needs from a wife. Works both ways in my book.

Post by **Magy** » Sat Jun 06, 2009 11:38 am

hi paris girl i was wondering how long you would have to wait for your visa appication to be granted after the marriage n cairo and also is they any further documents needed i was told that you would need phone records photo,s etc

Post by **Massinah** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 2:58 pm

May have misread but also get the Marriage papers translated then hand them or one of the copies to the Embassy to who ever country you come from ,and must be stamped and translated correctly .Well i had to have this .