What is the motivation for marriage; love or sharing property?

Mar 25, 2013

The Marriage and Divorce Bill should be given serious attention since the central point of the Bill is sharing property and so the excitement is on whom to share the property. Culturally, the Bill will favour a woman.

By Sarah Zikehikira

The Marriage and Divorce Bill should be given serious attention since the central point of the Bill is sharing property and so the excitement is on whom to share the property.

Culturally, the Bill will favour a woman, if it is the case of sharing property. But if it is to be gender sensitive and which I think should be, the case when the Bill goes through in its current state, then what will men do?

Let us not ignore the role of culture, religion and above all carry out research and come out with data to guide us. For example, what are we going to base on to determine the number of  years this woman has been staying with a man to be able to determine that they qualify to divorce and later alone share property?

Secondly, culturally, if a woman has not got a chance of having children, and the spouse died, then the property would be shared amongst the family members and the woman is not regarded regardless of the number of years she had been staying with a man.

Let us work hand-in-hand with the church such that we do not mess up what God has ordained. A marriage is a union of man and woman. These are two extremes of marry and divorce.  

To me the Bill looks at only an urban population. If one is to carry out research on the women and men, both urban and rural, you would get surprised about the outcome. My projection is that most people would agree with me that most women would reject most clauses in that Bill. 

Religiously, the basic ground of any government is a family. If a family is not stable, then the government will be standing on a time bomb. The church promotes strong bondages in marriage and does not agree with divorce or separation; cultures too do not agree with such to the extent that, if one is not married by a certain age, then everyone around them would get concerned.

Let us not be overtaken by other cultures that are baseless. African culture remains the best, leave alone the extremes of violence as a result of misunderstandings, bride price, which I think is not a major cause of violence because most people do not afford to pay the bride price but go ahead to marry and are happy.

Let us not ran too fast to bypass our homes and we forget the focal point that determine our destination but remember we are in a different error where men too are marginalised as they are raped, battered, they compete with women to work and look for money, and are challenged.

They are only consoled by the share of the property that the parents and grandparents left for them. Time comes and such property is sold off and is left with nothing but to lean on their women. These are the people that will target the female in order to get their property.

Therefore, if you are passing this Bill, think of the times in which we are operating from, and if you think you are protecting yourself, a time will come and you will be the target.

Let us look at the extreme cases of discrimination, marginalisation in marriage in the same way human rights activists agitate for equal rights. And let us not promote polygamy for monogamy was Gods design in creation (Genesis 2:21-24). With the Bill, we are going to be faced with fear to marry, and this will increase bad practices and increased cases of cohabitation.

The writer is an analyst and economic policy consultant
sbatuhairwe@yahoo.co.uk

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