I mean the Syrian transitional government can be accused of many things, but I'm not sure not building infrastructure is one of them.

Anyone who has the cultural background to properly interpret this story in context, please raise your hand.

Raises hand the idea behind a gender-segregated women is that it's, well, gender-segregated. According to the article an exception is usually made for the groom to take the bride from the women's section, but the city council in question was like "wait this defeats the point" and wanted to outlaw that exception. The groom isn't banned from the whole wedding, just the women's section. As for why do any of that, gender-segregation is a universal part of tradition and/or religion (this is a meaningful distinction because they do disagree sometimes, just not here) in Muslim societies, so it's something socially conservative people will want to do out of principle.