Paper short abstract:

Pre- or extra-marital love for Malay-Muslims can elicit desires that may transgress religious and legal limits on intimacy. Cross-border marriages in Southern Thailand offer quicker access to "permissible" intimacy by bypassing State bureaucratic processes for marriage, also facilitating polygamy.

Paper long abstract:

Love for Malay-Muslims is an ambivalent sentiment: it is acknowledged as an expected precedent to marriage, but outside of marriage, it can give rise to romantic and sexual desires that may potentially transgress moral, religious, and legal limits on intimacy. A vigilant Vice Prevention Unit, operated by the Malaysian State, which polices and criminalizes any pre- or extra-marital sexual engagement, also makes sexual and physical intimacy a conjugal privilege. Marriage thus acts as a gateway to love that is approved by Islam and the State. However, the path to conjugality -- both monogamous and polygamous -- is wrought with bureaucratic obstacles that make marriage an uncertain possibility. This paper explores how Malay-Muslim couples strategize around such bureaucratic inconveniences by eloping to Southern Thailand, where a cheap, and potentially legal cross-border marriage can be contracted before they fall into the temptation of indulging in illicit pre-marital sexual desires. I argue that cross-border marriages enable Malay-Muslims to bypass the Malaysian State in securing quick -- and discreet -- access to "permissible" intimacy, unbeknownst to disapproving parents and first wives. This makes cross-border marriages instrumental in facilitating secret polygamous unions, which introduces various complexities in the domestic arrangement, emotional management, and resource distribution within polygamy.