Cohabiting does not make you his wife

By Vicky Wandawa

They built a life together. They were cohabiting. Like any other married couple, their ‘marriage’, too, faced rough waters through bitter fights and disagreements. But there were also calm moments, when they laughed their hearts out.

They had children and purchased property. It was a cosy home. She was too busy being a mother, minding the children’s temperatures, meals, her husband’s health and beating her deadlines at work, to even think about the fact that in case of a split, she would have no claim to the property he bought in his name, since they were cohabiting.

So Prim (not real name) could not believe it when strangers walked up to the house she and her husband had built over 11 years and politely asked her whether she was willing to part with not less than sh700,000 for rent or leave the house.

Prim’s parents had looked forward to a big wedding for their first-born daughter, but got pregnant before the function.

Unhappy, they demanded to know why she had gotten pregnant before marriage.

To them, living with the man was not enough, they wanted her walked down the aisle.

The mistake, as they referred to the pregnancy, was forgiven. A year later, she was castigated when she made the same ‘mistake’, yet again — a second child.

Still, no wedding ring on her finger. When she made the third ‘mistake’, Prim went into hiding because she knew her parents would not forgive her.

Following the birth of her third child, she thought it was about time she introduced her husband to her family and perhaps had a wedding. To her dismay, she says, when she brought up the idea, he said he had bigger issues to think about, especially at work, hence the start of fights between the two. With the pressure from her relatives and a cold husband, whom she discovered was having a hard time at his job being investigated for fraud, she sought solace in a male colleague. Though she admits she had feelings for him, she never slept with him and it only ended at phone calls and coffee dates, when she wanted a shoulder to lean on.

Her husband, however, got wind of the dates and did not believe that they never slept together. He was saddened by the fact that she was desperate for a wedding to the extent of looking for it from a man who was not the father of her children. Then the silent treatment began.

Next was a series of fights over the phone calls her ‘husband’ received from his girlfriend, whom she suspected was a university student. It got so bad that he would actually answer the phone calls in their bed, without a care that his ‘wife’ was in hearing shot.

After a long spell of silent treatment, he asked her to dress up the children, saying they were going to visit their grandmother. Surprisingly, in the evening, he returned home without them.

When she demanded to know where they were, he insisted they were safe at their grandmother’s, who had insisted they stay over.

The following day, he dropped her off at work, but did not pick her up as he always did. And when she returned home, he was not there. In their bedroom, she noticed that a few of his belongings were missing. That is when she suspected he had left her. At about 9:00pm, her fears were confirmed when two men knocked at her door and informed her that she had to pay the rent or leave the house.

Hoping they were mistaken, she called her husband, only to be told he had sold off the house since she had no claim to it. He told her she could pick up the children when she had a decent place to stay.

And he was right; she had no claim to the house, because although he had built it while they lived together, it was registered in his name.

In Uganda, cohabiting does not constitute marriage, despite the number of years a man and a woman have lived together and children they have had.

Susan Labwot, a lawyer and gender officer with the Uganda Women’s Network, says cohabiting is not recognized under any law in Uganda.

“A cohabiting woman is not protected under the law as a wife. The presumption of marriage is that when it ends, the property you bought together is split equally. With cohabiting, you only leave with what personally belonged to you.”

While many would feel empathy for a woman kicked out with only her personal property, Anthony Ojok, an advocate and former registrar at the Uganda National Registration Bureau, says the blame mostly lies with the women because of their love for luxurious wedding ceremonies.

“It’s the women who complicate things. They want to hold big introductions and wedding receptions. With such demands, a man will keep putting off the wedding and before you know it, they have cohabited for years and even have children.”

He says although cohabitation has its advantages, these are outweighed by the disadvantages.