Maine Supreme Court Declines to Recognize Foreign Marriage
July 8, 2026
Under traditional choice of law rules, a marriage performed outside of a U.S. state (even in a foreign country) will be recognized as valid if it meets the requirements of the place of celebration. Under the Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws, by contrast, the validity of a marriage is determined by the law of the state that has the most significant relationship to the spouses and the marriage. That state will ordinarily (but not always) be the place of celebration. The Supreme Judicial Court of Maine had the opportunity to consider which of these two rules to apply when assessing the validity of foreign marriages in Aldarraji v. Alolwan, a case decided on April 23, 2026. Despite having followed the Second Restatement in other areas, the Court decided to adopt the traditional rule for recognizing marriage.
Facts
Tareq I. Alolwan was born in Saudi Arabia. He moved to the United States in 2006, eventually becoming a dual citizen of Saudi Arabia and the United States. Tabarek T. H. Aldarraji came to the United States in 2018 from Iraq. In 2019, the parties met and later the same year traveled to Dubai, United Arab Emirates to participate in a religious marriage ceremony. The ceremony was officiated remotely by an imam affiliated with a mosque in Biddeford, Maine, and was performed pursuant to the laws of the couple’s Islamic faith.
Once the ceremony was complete, the imam provided the couple with a certificate of religious marriage. Shortly after the ceremony, the couple had a wedding reception in Turkey.
While in Turkey, Alolwan and Aldarraji, along with two witnesses, signed the certificate of religious marriage provided by the imam. No marriage ceremony took place in Maine and neither Alolwan nor Aldarraji took steps to validate the marriage in accordance with Maine law. Years later, right before filing for divorce, Aldarraji visited the Biddeford City Hall and unsuccessfully attempted to “certify” the couple’s marriage.
On April 17, 2024, Aldarraji filed for divorce. Alolwan moved to dismiss the complaint, arguing that no lawful marriage existed. The trial court granted Alowan’s motion to dismiss. Although it found that the couple had participated in a valid religious ceremony, the trial court concluded that the couple had never been legally married under the laws of Maine or any other country.
Analysis
To determine whether a valid marriage existed, the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine had to decide what law should apply. Aldarraji argued that Maine should look to the Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws, which requires courts to apply the law of the jurisdiction with “the most significant relationship to the spouses and the marriage.” Aldarraji contended that because the couple had resided in Maine continuously since before the religious ceremony, Maine law should be used to determine the legality of the marriage.
The court acknowledged that it had previously adopted the Second Restatement approach in areas such as torts, contracts, and evidence. Nevertheless, it rejected Aldarraji’s invitation to follow the Second Restatement when evaluating the validity of a marriage. The court chose instead to apply the traditional approach. When a marriage occurs outside the State of Maine, it reasoned, the Maine courts “will recognize the marriage as valid if entered into pursuant to the laws of the jurisdiction where it occurred” unless the marriage is contrary to Maine’s public policy.
In support of its decision, the court praised the simplicity of the traditional approach as compared to the “complexity” of the Second Restatement test. The court further observed that “sound public policy” counseled that there be very little uncertainty as to whether a valid marriage exists and that the traditional approach generated less uncertainty than the alternative. Finally, the court concluded that the decision was consistent with the relevant Maine statute, which by its terms applied only to marriages celebrated in Maine.
Although the imam who performed the virtual ceremony was based in Maine, the couple was physically present in Dubai. Accordingly, the court held that the marriage ceremony took place in Dubai. The question, therefore, was whether the parties had been validly married under the law of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The trial court had previously given Aldarraji the opportunity to provide evidence of foreign law which would demonstrate that there was, in fact, a legal marriage in the UAE. However, Aldarraji failed to present any evidence on the content of UAE law. Instead, she merely argued that the wedding complied with Maine’s statutory requirements. In the absence of any evidence of UAE law, the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine held that Aldarraji had waived the argument that the marriage was valid under that law and granted Alolwan’s motion to dismiss.
Conclusion
If Aldarraji had (at least in the alternative) argued that the marriage ceremony complied with United Arab Emirates law, and if she had presented evidence of the content of such law, she might well have prevailed. Instead, she argued that the Maine courts should follow the Second Restatement to the exclusion of the traditional approach. When the court chose to apply the traditional choice of law rules, the case was lost.