OPINION: Divorce in Court is not the final annulment of marriage in Igboland

By Anayo M. Nwosu

Mazi Onyeàmà in marrying Ugogbemma had performed all the traditional marriage rites before proceeding to the marriage registry to do what is regarded as court marriage. The couple also wedded in the church.

In the eyes of the ancestors, the law and the christian God, Mr and Mrs Onyeàmà were properly married. They remained so until twenty years into their marriage when Mazi Onyeàmà began to experience erectile dysfunction. He was in his early fifties and was undergoing mid-age crisis. At this time, most men's sexual capacities decrease while that of their wives increase.

It was during this transition period that Madam Ugogbemma was caught on a tip off at a usual joint doing a new normal with a subordinate in her office. The shame was too much for her husband who asked her to move out. He eventually procured a divorce and an annulment of the marriage from his church.

In the eyes  of those living in Lagos, Abuja, London and Rome, the marriage of Mazi Onyeàmà and Madam Ugogbemma had ended but it is not so in my side of Igbo land.

In Nnewi and in many parts of Igbo land, a marriage is deemed annulled when the paternal family of a married woman returns the exact bride price paid by her husband's family. This traditional divorce could be triggered by either party.

If a man feels that he is fed up with his marriage, he should visit his father-in-law (or his successor if the father-in-law has died). He must be accompanied by one of his relations or a friend. One witness is enough.

A husband determined to end his marriage must visit his inlaws with a keg of palm wine into which is stuffed with a leaf or leaves of pear tree as known as ubé. He needs not disclose the reason of the visit which is usually short.

The inlaws would decode the reason when they inspect the wine. Ubé or pear meaning "ubé belu n'oké" or "let the relationship end at this point". This journey is usually undertaken when the wife has already left her husband's home on her own or by compulsion.

Once the family of the married woman receives the ubé laced wine, they are bound to refund the bride price called ngọ or akụ nwaanyị to the family of the estranged husband. If they don't, the family of the husband would have to report the debt to the traditional ruler.

A smart family of an estranged wife could say that they would only refund the ngọ or akụ nwanyị whenever their daughter remarries. Once this commitment is made, the marriage has been severed.

A wife unwilling to continue in a marriage can also trigger off the traditional divorce. She would first leave or flee her marital home then get her people to take to the family of her husband, the exact amount they collected as bride price. This can be sent through the marriage go-between or witness also known as onye akaebe. The money could be given to the husband directly or his father or the eldest man in his family or the traditional head of his extended family.

Note that in Nnewi and environs, the wife's family is only bound to return the usually inconsequential amount of money paid to bride's family. Bride price is ₦60 in Nnewi even though some families collect far less.

Nothing else, including gifts, drinks or any other material expenditure freely given by a husband to his inlaws or to his wife is refunded or returned to him or his family once the marriage is deemed ended.

If the man had bought a car, built houses or estates for his inlaws, he cannot be repaid since he cannot refund the pleasures he derived from the sweet bowl of the woman he married. Can a man reset the wife to that young succulent bride he was given? Every Nnewi man knows that any expenses made during marriage ceremonies or on the inlaws are never recoverable.

There are cases where a wife would want a divorce and the husband would refuse and would be frustrating all efforts made by his estranged inlaws to return the bride price. When this happens, the ngọ or akụ nwaanyị should be submitted to the traditional ruler of the town who would then summon the foot-dragging party to do the needful. It is like a deliverance from marital entanglement.

Until the bride price is returned or the pear or ubé laced palm wine is taken to the wife's relations to announce the cessation of the marriage, the union is deemed existing in the eyes of the ancestors and in reality.

In Igbo tradition, until the marriage is annulled traditionally, any child born by a woman even when it is crystal clear that her estranged husband was not the fertiliser, belongs to the man who paid the bride price; and it is not debatable.

No Nnewi man who suckled his mother's breasts for over one year and whose scrotal sacs are clearly transversed by tendons would marry a woman or even impregnate a formerly married woman without first ensuring that the woman is free of all marital encumberances. If he is sexually careless or had allowed love to blind his traditional eyes then, he would have worked for the the man who is supposed to be a former husband by siring children for him. A product of this kind of union cannot become a king or Igwe, obi of his ụmụnna or be allowed to carry the ọfọ ụmụnna as the eldest of the extended family.

Ever heard of a name, "Ikeapụtanwa"? It is a typical Anambra name which means that "nobody can claim the paternity or ownership of an offspring through might or raw show of power outside the clear or prescribed traditional route of fatherhood".

It is a cultural carelessness for a couple to forget to severe the initial marital cord which is the traditional marriage which was demanded by the church and the registry before court and church weddings.

Obtaining a divorce from the court without making a refund of the bride price or taking the ubé laced palm wine to an estranged wife's people is like delivering a baby without severing the umbilical cord. The reality is that the divorce proceeding has not been completed and the implication is imilimious.