Ensuring marriage wellness

TDT | Manama

Email : editor@newsofbahrain.com

Parliament ’s Services Committee is reviewing a bill to widen pre-marital screening to include mental-health assessments and tests for drug use alongside existing checks for genetic and infectious diseases.

Proof of testing would be required before a marriage contract is concluded. Specialist doctors would advise couples, and the minister could order further tests by decision.

The draft shifts the scheme from a narrow medical check to a fuller assessment of both parties.

Review It keeps the current screens for hereditary and communicable conditions, adds a review of mental health, and requires testing to detect the use of illegal medicines or narcotics.

Those empowered to conclude marriage contracts would have to verify that both sides have completed the examination.

MP Basema Mubarak, one of the sponsors, said the measure aims to help couples start family life on sound footing.

She said the goal reaches beyond infectious and genetic disease to include mental wellbeing and social stability.

Mubarak said early detection of substance use can decide if a marriage is viable.

Treating the issue lightly, she added, can carry consequences that reach children and contribute to family break-up and divorce.

Supporters note that the current law focuses on hereditary and communicable disease alone.

They cite regional practice, including Saudi Arabia’s premarital screening programme, which they say cut high-risk marriages by about 60 per cent over six years.

They also point to studies linking drug or alcohol use by one partner to severe strain, poor communication and relationship decline, which raises the chance of separation or divorce.

Figures cited in the proposal state that more than 321,000 children in the United States lost a parent to drug overdose between 2011 and 2021.

Care and protection

According to the explanatory memorandum, the Constitution stresses the care and protection of the family as a foundation of a healthy, stable society.

The memo says public health now extends beyond genetic disease to include mental health, and that wider pre-marital screening is needed to assess psychological stability and addiction risks.

It says the changes aim to found Bahraini families on firm, healthy bases, support social stability and avoid family fractures that carry negative social and security effects.