Terengganu state seeks to spice up marriages, drive down divorces

Terengganu state Religious and Information Committee deputy chairman Muhammad Ramli Nuh, being fretting about rising divorces said it will offer classes on romance to help Muslim couples stay together - even encourage them to bathe together to promote intimacy.

Officials will hire image consultants to hold workshops providing tips for wives on how to remain attractive, including using perfume and wearing lingerie to spice up their sex life, "husbands should wear clean pyjamas and reduce body odourless.", said Nuh.

"The state will also invite cosmetics manufacturers to come up with special scents meant to "help sustain the happiness" in marriages,he said.

Authorities in the Muslim-majority state are also urging couples to spend as much time together to boost their rapport, including by praying, eating and bathing together.

"Their time together shouldn't only be in the bedroom sleeping," Muhammad Ramli Nuh said.

He told reporters that at least three in every 10 marriages in the state end in divorce. Separation was now the trend among couples aged between 25 and 30 years.

Nuh said couples who had been married for less than five years and were on the verge of separation had told counsellors that routine sex and body odour were the main reasons for them to want to break up.

He was bewildered that some of these couples said their spouses' old-fashioned pyjamas - sarong and t-shirt - and bad smell during intimate moments made their sex life monotonous or turned them off completely.

'I know of one case where a separation was triggered just because the spouse smelled of fish crackers,' he said.