This month will be coming to an end very soon, it's just less than 3 days left before we enter May, are you excited? Probably not, it's just another month, right? Unless it's your birthday. See haven't had electricity for over a day now, it seems it got damaged after the heavy rainfall yesterday, but at least I still have enough battery and my powerbank isn't dead yet.
A few days ago, I was discussing with @Lhes about some of the customs and laws that govern a lot of the traditional (tribe) marriages in my country. She was talking about gender equality and I decided to pitch in with some of the things I have observed in my country (you can check out her article over here).
Later in the evening on that same day, a piece of controversial news suddenly rocked the internet and was trending in my country; A very popular celebrity took in a second wife and nobody saw it coming! From the gist I heard, he got someone pregnant and he ended up marrying her. The first wife hasn't said anything yet but I know no woman in this modern time and age will be cool with the husband suddenly taking a new wife.
Now I am going to loop you guys into the thing I was discussing with Lhes the other day and it's about the traditional marriage system in my country and how it's built to favor men. Sometime last year, I came across a controversial thread on nairaland and it generated a lot of argument. Someone just came up and said:
And that was how the whole thing started. Back then, I didn't know much about the customs and laws governing most traditional marriages in Nigeria, so I followed the thread judiciously. A lot of counterarguments were brought up but after reading the arguments, I could see the point the thread creator was trying to make and which lots of people aren't seeing: women should always include court weddings as a safety measure.
My country is very serious when it comes to customs and traditions, so most of the time a person will always have to do a traditional wedding first before embarking on other types of wedding (church or court wedding). The traditional wedding has a lot of red flags when it comes to women's rights and it was built that way to favor the men because the woman is seen as the property of the man after he has paid her dowry (bride price).
The traditional marriage isn't law-bidding and it creates an avenue for the men to go out there and cheat and come back home with a new wife and the first wife won't be able to do anything! She will only complain about it and even if she decides to leave, she goes with nothing, not even her children! And that's because, under the traditional laws, the man has custody of the children.
I am not saying it's the same for all tribes but from the ones I am familiar with, that's how it is. The funny thing is that, under civil law, Nigeria does not recognize polygamous union (except for states under Sharia law) but it's still practiced everywhere, and do you know why? Because marriages conducted under traditional laws are not covered in civil law, women who settle for that are taking a very high risk.
The risk of settling for only traditional marriage doesn't only come in the form of the man taking in another wife, the wife isn't entitled to any of the husband's property when he dies. There have been cases where a widow is driven from her home by the husband's relatives and she's left with nothing and she can do absolutely nothing about it!
Even church weddings don't have much power to counter traditional laws, the superior one is the court wedding and it's fully covered under civil law. With the court wedding, it's illegal for the man to take in another wife while he is still married. For him to do that, he has to divorce his current wife first and the divorce comes with him splitting his property into two and his wife will end up with half of it.
I have always known about the traditional marriage right from childhood but I didn't know it was this terrible for women, it robs them of most of their rights. It's only men that truly love their wife that will decide to treat her right but the ones that don't care can cheat and marry lots of wives because traditionally speaking, men don't cheat and that's because they are not compelled to take a vow or oath to stick to one woman which is done in the church or court wedding.
church weddings give a woman more power in her marriage but sadly, some women don't know this. They are ignorant of the fact that they have more rights and can sue their husband when he abuses them. Some others know about the power they hold but they are afraid to use it because they don't want to end up with a broken home, so they turn a blind eye to whatever the husband is doing.
The bottom line of the whole argument was that women should always insist on a court wedding in addition to the traditional one so that they will be protected legally. Church weddings are cool as well but it tends to be abused easily and isn't on par with court wedding.
Most men are wary when it comes to court weddings because when a woman insists on it, it shows she knows her way around the laws and the man has to tread carefully or else he will end up regretting his actions. But should it even be this way? I mean using court weddings as a measure to keep the man in check, it shouldn't come down to that in the first place if the man truly loves his wife.
Disclaimer: most of the things I have said here are just from the traditional marriages I am familiar with and are not in any way saying it's the same all over the country. I am only talking about the ones I know and the ones I have heard, so forgive me if it's different in your region.
Thanks for reading 💖💖💖
Thursday April 24, 2022
The issue of Marriage has many K-legs, we just pray that we don't suffer trouble in our marriages. I didn't know this traditional effects too, infact I've believed that the traditional is far more recognized by the law compared to church wedding due to the way my people weigh it.