Lebanon is not controlled by an authorization ruler, unlike most Arab states that are being ruled by the same person or a dynasty like a father to son combination for decades. Under the Lebanon laws, the government is a form of sectarian dictatorship that divides the power among the 18 official religions and each has individual limitations to its access to the state. In this system, the power is divided as follows, the president should be a Maronite Catholic, the prime minister is a Sunni Muslim, the speaker of the house is a Shiite Muslim and the rest of the members of the cabinet and parliamentary seats are to be filled based on the religious quotas.

According to this confessional system, each citizen must choose a sect before he or she can get their rights as a citizen. Religious authorities control all family laws such as birth, marriage, death and inheritance. Because it is the religious courts who has jurisdiction on family laws, civil marriage doesn’t exist in Lebanon.

According to the majority of religious laws, the father is granted with child custody and the child is automatically registered in the village of the father. The parents, under the Shiite courts, are allowed to leave their property to their daughters alone, while in Sunni courts, it is required that at least some of the assets go to the closest male relative. There are also some sects that give men lesser penalty for harming their female relatives if they did it as a means of protecting their “family honor”. Lebanon laws also don’t recognize rape within marriage as a crime.