Marriage in African Society and Culture: Challenges to Polygamy as A Juridical Matrimonial Model in Nigeria

Abstract

In African society and culture, marriage as a human reality is plays an important role in integrating the
family with the society. This marriage before the advent of Christianity was solely polygamous in nature,
either as polygyny or polyandry, the native law and custom of the various African societies concede to men
the capacity to take more than one wife concurrently. Islamic law in Northern Nigeria equally permits a
man to marry up to a maximum of four wives. The reasons given for polygamy include solving the problem
of childlessness in marriage and the need to give all adult females the possibility of having a husband as
the number of women is said to outnumber that of men. In Nigeria today, polygamy is faced with a lot of
challenges as result of the exigencies of the fundamental rights of the human person. There are challenges
from international conventions that advocate for the prohibition of polygamy, as it contravenes a woman’s
right to equality with men. There are equally challenges from Nigerian extant laws, from canon law, from
women theologians, from Church authorities and from changing economic circumstances. The paper
recommends that polygamy as a matrimonial model in Nigeria should be discountenanced, and then
concludes with a submission that polygamy is a negation of the unitary ideal of marriage and that it stands
out as one of the oppressive structures of women in Nigeria-Africa, for it is not only devoid of complete
self-donation to any of the wives, but equally goes against the well-being and dignity of women as persons.