Samenvatting

Dutch law solely recognizes civil marriage. According to law, religious marriages can only take place after these civil marriages. Over the last years there have been several indications of rising numbers of ‘informal marriages’ which conflict with the law. These informal marriages were presupposed to take place primarily in Muslim circles. Amongst politicians and media the worries were expressed that these marriages pointed to an aversion with regard to the state of law and to radicalization of the young people involved. They were also seen as a risk to the security of society. In this explorative study we did not find any evidence for this securitisation link.