There are rising cases of divorce and separation due to irreconcilable differences between hitherto inseparable lovers.
When the cases get to court, estate sharing becomes almost impossible if the couple were not married in court/registry.
Church weddings and traditional ceremonies are viewed as mere social events if neither couple has no legal proof of their union.
In other instances, when one of them d!es, the surviving spouse has no stake in the deceased’s estate.
This was aptly explained by what happened to a widow who was left penniless with three children.
According to Emeka Ugwuonye, “this lady had only a traditional marriage. No registry marriage. To have a traditional marriage only is like getting married the way your forefathers did 200 years ago. Can you imagine driving in 2024 a car made 100 years ago, or living in a house built and furnished 100 years ago?
Can you imagine putting on a cloth made 100 years ago? That is what happens if in 2024 all you have is a traditional marriage. It is like living a life without electricity, without telephone, without cars, without running water or toilets. It is unfortunate that anyone would have only traditional marriage.
Traditional marriage was excellent 100 years ago because people lived with their relatives in their villages and compounds where everybody knew everybody, and wives and husbands almost always came from the same kindreds and villages.
Adultery was rare because girls married as virgins and the oracle would k!ll you if you mess with another man’s wife. It was a taboo for a man to neglect his family. Nobody committed domestic violence because his kinsmen and age-grade would beat him up. They had to discipline him because beating his wife could prevent his brothers from getting married since his family would have a reputation of wife-beaters.
Now people meet their spouses on social media and she could be from a different community, and they all live in cities where their neighbors are people of different ethnicity and religion, we need to have marriages that are governed by modern law rather than by customs and traditions.
If you meet a person who tells you he is against registry marriage, you should take that to mean a conclusive indicator that your marriage is not a real marriage. In this case, though, what happened was that both the man and the wife did not understand the importance of registry marriage.
Men who reject registry marriage are apparently not wise.
DPA Family Law cited the case of a man who wedded his in the native law and custom. This man (now dead) would have wished that he had a registry marriage.
The law firm frowned at what the deceased’s kinsmen did to his wife and children. He has three boys. They are now homeless. Without a registry marriage, the man’s relatives might get away with it.
The woman’s story:
