It is said that the fact that Mr. he-goat has got a beard is no reason why any human should address him as ‘sir’. Therefore, the fact that a particular customary practice is established to be the norm among a particular community, is no reason why the court must be bound to uphold it. The customary court is always called upon to weigh any given custom on the scale of ‘substantial justice’ to ensure that it is a practice that accords with equity and good conscience.
Mr. XY fell in love with Lady UV and proposed marriage to her. When she said the big ‘Yes’, he insisted that she should take him to her people so that he could do the right thing by her. Lady UV’s family gave Mr. XY a list of items to buy for the marriage of their daughter under the native laws and customs of their people, which list included: (1) Seven whole pods of kola-nut, (2) Two nanny goats, (3) Five big bags of rice, (4) Ten sizeable calabashes of palm-wine, (5) Seven big bottles of local gin, (6) A suitcase containing twelve pairs of Hollandaise wrappers, (7) Ten big gallons of palm-oil and (8) Fifty sizeable tubers of yam… To be able to put the items together, Mr. XY had to exhaust his entire savings, and secured a loan into the bargain. He had to charter a pick-up van to ship the items to Lady UV’s family compound on the day of the traditional marriage ceremony.
‘You must take note that this is just “INTRODUCTION”,’ Lady UV’s senior uncle explained to Mr. XY’s family towards the end of the ceremony. ‘By our custom, a marriage ceremony does not begin and end in one day. It’s an abomination.’
‘I don’t understand you, sir,’ Mr. XY spoke up. ‘Do you people mean to tell us that this whole ceremony that has swallowed all my life savings is only known as “introduction”?’
The old man smiled and answered:
‘It’s not exactly the way you’ve put it, my son. You’ve done the major part of the work as it is. All we’re saying is that, by our custom, we cannot allow you to pay the Bride Price straightaway, because marrying a woman is too weighty a business to be started and concluded in just one day. Our elders insist that a man can never finish marrying his wife for as long as she lives, because it’s a continuous process.’
‘What’s the hurry?’ asked Lady UV’s father when a month later Mr. XY tried to prevail on him to fix a date for what he claimed was remaining of the traditional marriage ceremony. ‘Go on with your life, my son. Like we told you, marrying a woman is a lifelong thing.’
But Mr. XY had a gut feeling that all the cards of his in-laws had not been laid on the table. So, about six months afterwards, he sourced for money and rushed back with his family members to his woman’s people, insisting on paying her Bride Price without further delay. But again, he came against a brick wall.
‘Our daughter has told us that she’s already pregnant,’ said the spokesperson for the family. ‘So, you have to wait until she’s put to bed, for it’s against our tradition to accept Bride Price on a pregnant woman. As it is, she’s no longer one person but two – or even more. So, is it she that you’ll be paying the Bride Price on or the one within the womb? You see? That is why it’s a big abomination to pay Bride Price on a pregnant woman. So, exercise patience, son…’
Four months later, Lady UV was delivered of an adorable baby boy. When the baby was six weeks old, Mr. XY returned from work one evening to discover that his woman – without any prior quarrel – had absconded with their baby son. Mr. XY took some family members and went in search of them to Lady UV’s father’s house.
‘Our daughter is quite in order,’ Lady UV’s senior uncle defended before a gathering of the two families. ‘Since you did not pay her Bride Price before she gave birth, the baby belongs to her father. That’s the custom.’
‘What? Ever before I touched your daughter, I begged to pay her Bride Price but you refused,’ Mr. XY reminded the people.
‘It’s nothing to quarrel over,’ said one of the elders of the family. ‘The truth is that your woman happens to be her father’s first daughter, as you are well aware. So, by our custom, the first fruit of her womb belongs to her maiden family – in compensation for all the training she received – before she’ll go into marriage proper and begin to have children who will bear another man’s name. That’s our custom!’
‘That’s your custom!’ Mr. XY flared up. ‘How come you never told me about it at the beginning, for me to make up my mind whether I wanted to gift my own “first seed” to a man who did not directly father him? My first son must bear my own name – that’s the custom of my own people!’
And so he brought a Declaratory action against Lady UV and her father (as 1st and 2nd Defendants), praying court to DECLARE that he had properly married 1st Defendant and was the legal father of her baby son; and to pronounce that the native law and custom under which the Defendants sought to deny him paternity of his baby was contrary to natural justice, equity and good conscience.
At the hearing of the case, Defendants called many witnesses, but their testimonies were outweighed by the avalanche of evidence led by the Plaintiff of how Defendants had practically ripped him off in what he had felt was his TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE CEREMONY with 1st Defendant, only to be told it was merely ‘introduction’. Plaintiff told court that if Defendants had disclosed to him the existence of their said custom, he would never have touched 1st Defendant even with a long pole. All in all, Plaintiff’s counsel urged court to hold that the drinks, yams, wrappers and sundry other expensive items which were squeezed out of Plaintiff by Defendants in that ceremony which was fraudulently tagged ‘Introduction’ actually amounted to a real traditional marriage between 1st Defendant and the Plaintiff, which marriage formed the plank on which must rest Plaintiff’s paternity of the baby son whom he biologically fathered through 1st Defendant…
In the end, the arguments of counsel to Plaintiff were weighed on the scale of justice against those of counsel to Defendants, together with the oral evidence led before court by both parties. Part of the judgment of court read thus:
‘…This court is a court of substantial justice and must never allow itself to be bogged down by technicalities. We, therefore, refuse to uphold any customary practices which are oppressive and at variance with natural justice, equity and good conscience…’
Thus, court gave judgment in favour of Plaintiff, declaring that by the evidence before it, he was legally married to 1st Defendant and so was the legal father of the baby son, subject-matter of the case. 2nd Defendant was cautioned by the court to release his daughter (1st Defendant) and her baby to Plaintiff, forthwith, on pain of imprisonment for Contempt of Court.
