Lebanon in a time of “civil love”

Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this paper explores the ways in which calls for the introduction of civil marriage in Lebanon have evolved since the end of the civil war. By stressing the concept of a politics of emotions, I focus in particular on the approaches activists have taken to the media when engaging in collective demonstrations. While they use civil marriage as a symbol of peaceful cohabitation, anti-sectarianism, and as a promise for a civil state, activists have been promoting an individual approach to public action, based on the juridical principle of contractual freedom. By exploring their practices, along with the experiences of ordinary couples that have celebrated civil marriages, I show that the focus on sectarianism as an anti-model for Lebanese society disguises other structural hierarchies.