Background
Tabarek Aldarraji and Tareq Alolwan met in 2019 after both had emigrated to the United States—Alolwan from Saudi Arabia (a dual U.S.-Saudi citizen who arrived in 2006) and Aldarraji from Iraq (who arrived in 2018). Later in 2019, the couple traveled to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, where they participated in a religious marriage ceremony conducted according to Islamic faith. No religious official was physically present; an imam affiliated with a mosque in Biddeford, Maine, officiated remotely. The imam issued a certificate of religious marriage, which the parties and two witnesses later signed in Turkey in January 2020. The parties then returned to Maine and lived together, but they never participated in a marriage ceremony in Maine nor took any steps to comply with Maine’s statutory marriage requirements.
In April 2024, Aldarraji filed a complaint for divorce in Maine District Court. Alolwan moved to dismiss on the ground that no lawful marriage existed. After an evidentiary hearing, the District Court granted the motion, concluding that although the parties had participated in a valid religious ceremony, they had not complied with Maine’s statutory requirements and were not legally married “anywhere else.” Aldarraji appealed, arguing her religious marriage was valid under Maine statutory exceptions and, alternatively, that limiting those exceptions to Quakers and Baha’i members while excluding Muslims was unconstitutional.
The Court’s Holding
The Maine Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the dismissal, but on a threshold choice-of-law ground that made it unnecessary to reach Aldarraji’s statutory or constitutional arguments. The court held, as a matter of first impression, that the validity of a marriage is determined by the law of the jurisdiction where the marriage ceremony occurred—not by Maine law. Because the ceremony took place in the United Arab Emirates, UAE law governed whether a valid marriage existed.
The court declined to adopt the Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws “most significant relationship” test that Aldarraji urged, instead reaffirming the traditional lex loci celebrationis rule. The court reasoned that this rule is simpler, reduces uncertainty about marital status, and aligns with the text of Maine’s marriage statutes, which by their own terms apply only to ceremonies occurring within Maine. Both at trial—when the District Court expressly invited her to show a valid marriage under UAE law—and on appeal, Aldarraji failed to make that argument, instead insisting Maine law should apply. The court held she had waived any UAE-law argument, and also noted waiver under M.R. Civ. P. 44A for failure to give notice of intent to raise foreign-country law.
Key Takeaways
- Maine follows the traditional rule that the validity of a marriage is determined by the law of the jurisdiction where the ceremony was performed, not the state where the parties reside.
- The court declined, as a matter of first impression, to adopt the Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws “most significant relationship” test for marriage validity, citing that rule’s complexity and the public-policy interest in clear, predictable marital status determinations.
- Maine’s statutory marriage requirements (19-A M.R.S. §§ 650–753) apply only to ceremonies performed within Maine; they do not govern the validity of marriages solemnized in other jurisdictions.
- A party seeking to establish a foreign marriage must raise and brief the foreign jurisdiction’s law—both at trial and on appeal—or the argument is waived; M.R. Civ. P. 44A also requires written notice when foreign-country law will be at issue.
Why It Matters
This decision resolves a question of first impression in Maine and provides a clear framework for courts evaluating the validity of marriages solemnized abroad: look to where the ceremony occurred, not where the spouses live. The ruling benefits parties who marry outside Maine and then establish residence here, as long as their ceremony complied with the law of the place where it was held—but it also cuts against litigants who assume Maine residence confers the protection of Maine marriage law on a ceremony that never touched Maine soil.
The court’s explicit rejection of the Second Restatement’s flexible, multi-factor approach in favor of the simpler lex loci celebrationis rule signals a preference for predictability over fact-intensive balancing in the domestic-relations context. Practitioners advising immigrant or internationally mobile clients should take note: failure to comply with—or even to plead—the marriage law of the ceremony’s jurisdiction can be fatal to divorce jurisdiction in Maine courts.