‘Why do we have to circumcise our son?’ Meanings behind male circumcision in the life stories of mixed couples with a Muslim partner

ABSTRACT

Circumcision is an important symbolic practice that involves parenting and intergenerational transmission. Nevertheless, previous research has not investigated what it actually means to the partners, its significance in countries where Muslims are minorities and — above all — if people marry outside their own religious group. Through an analysis of partners’ narratives, the article explores the meaning attributed to circumcision by mixed couples (where one partner has a Muslim background and the other a Christian one) living in Belgium, France and Italy. A kaleidoscope of meanings shapes the choice to circumcise: medicalisation, patrilineality, ethnicity and religion. The findings demonstrate how: 1) through the medicalisation of the practice, partners apparently ‘de-culturalise’ circumcision, ‘universalising’ its benefit for the male body. Thanks to the role of a medical expert they legitimate their choice recalling the ‘authority of science’; 2) when the Muslim partner is the man, circumcision represents a physical connection that the father wants to maintain; 3) circumcision is a ‘strong’ marker of ethnicity, often disentangled from religion. It therefore emerges as a tangible act that connects social rites, the family of origin and cultural belonging. These motivations offer a new insight into the partners’ practices to counter the ‘losing’ of the minority background.

KEYWORDS:

• Ancestry
• belonging
• Christian–Muslim couples
• circumcision
• mixed couples
• parenting

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 According to Kister (1994), there is no specific verse about circumcision, but commentators have attempted to find some indications in the holy book that God wanted Ibrahim (Abraham) to perform it, such as verse 124 in sūrat al-baqara: ‘and (remember) when his Lord tried Abraham with certain commands which he fulfilled’, ‘One of these commands, kalimāt, was, according to some scholars, the injunction of the circumcision’ (Kister 1994, 12). For others, no evidence of circumcision exists in the fiqh, the scholarly interpretations of the divine law. Instead, circumcision would be a Sunnah, one of the practices that have become customary models to be followed by Muslims. The term khitân is used in the Ahadith — which provides the documentation of the Sunnah — to refer to male circumcision.

2 We refer to the parents' different religious backgrounds and not to their current religious identifications, since these last may have varied over time, due, for instance, to the loss of religiosity or to the religious conversion of one of the two partners. However, in the text, we discuss the issue of the level of religiosity and how this may (or may not) be connected with the parents’ decision to circumcise their son. In order to avoid longer descriptive labels to indicate one of the two partners we sometimes use ‘Muslim partner’ and ‘Christian partner’ even when they are not practicing. We do not use this distinction when one of the two partners has converted.

3 In line with Anthias (2008), we believe that: ‘belonging emerges in relational terms: both in terms of the construction of we-ness — i.e.: those who can stand as selves — and the construction of “otherness” […]. Belonging therefore tends to become “naturalized” and thus invisible in hegemonic formulations’ (p. 8).

4 Circumcision is a widespread practice in many regions of the world, not only in Jewish and Muslim communities. For example, the Coptic Christians in Egypt and Ethiopian Orthodox Christians perform male circumcision, having apparently retained it from the practices of early Christianity.

5 To employ the expression used by the 2015 resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on freedom of religion and living together in a democratic society.

6 See for instance the 2013 resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) that listed non-medically justified circumcision of young boys among those practices that violate children’s right to physical integrity (together with female genital mutilation; PACE 2013).

7 Although its regulation is not clear-cut. In France, circumcision is neither banned nor explicitly permitted, merely tolerated (Fortier et al. 2016; Conseil d’État 2004, 331–332). It can be performed for medical reasons. Ritual circumcision requires the prior consent of both parents. In Italy, circumcision is accepted as an expression of the right to freedom of religion which must be guaranteed to all on an equal basis (Angelucci 2016). It has to be carried out by a doctor, who, however, can refuse to perform it on the grounds of conscientious objection. Even in Belgium, circumcision is not subject to any specific legislation; rather it is a matter of applying common law (Christians, Delgrange, and Lerouxel 2016). Nevertheless, in 2017, the Belgian Bioethics Advisory Committee declared that its non-therapeutic practice has to be regarded as unethical.

8 The average duration of each interview was between one and three hours. All the interviews were recorded (notes were taken in parallel during interviews) and fully transcribed to be analysed without using any qualitative data analysis software.

9 In 18 cases, the mothers belonging to the majority group (Italian, French or Belgian) had converted to Islam.

10 According to the Quran, only the father’s religion can be passed down. This is because Muslim women cannot marry a non-Muslim while Muslim men can marry women of ‘the people of the Book’ (kitabiyya), i.e., Jewish or Christian women (Quran 5,5).

Additional information

Funding

The research of Francesco Cerchiaro has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie, grant number 747592, and from the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO), grant number 12X6120N.