23/06/2024
I think a lot of people, men especially, have been unnecessarily apprehensive about court marriages because they view it as an easy pass for women to take their property upon divorce.
It's important to understand that Nigeria's legal system offers different principles for settling property under various forms of marriage, such as customary law, Islamic law, and statutory provisions (marriage under the Act). If you have a traditional marriage, you are married under customary law. If you have a court or church marriage in a registered church (like the Catholic Church), you are married under the Act.
In settling property under statutory marriages (church and court marriages), either party can apply to the court alongside the divorce petition for property settlement. The legal framework is outlined in Section 72 of the Matrimonial Causes Act. The property to be settled must belong to either party and can be real or personal.
Under statutory marriages, the court assesses justice and fairness when the party seeking property settlement establishes that they have contributed concretely to the acquisition of the property. See KAFI v. KAFI 1986 NWLR 175 and ONABOLU v. ONABOLU (2005) 2 SMC 135.
It's worth noting that "suffering" with a man is not considered an acceptable contribution by most judges. In Sodipe v Sodipe (1990) 5 WRN 98, a man was valued at 10M, and the court ordered the husband to give the wife N200K because her only claim was that she was married to him for 43 years and grew with him. She couldn't point to any substantial contribution to the sum.
In essence, if you enter a marriage with nothing, you cannot claim a man's property simply because you were married. Similarly, if a woman contributes money for cement to build a house and tops up money to buy a car, the man cannot take everything upon divorce simply because he is a man.
