In Nigeria, we have
two kinds of recognized marriages;
- Customary marriage (this includes the Islamic Marriage)
- Statutory Marriage (
not white wedding)
In Nigeria, a statutory
marriage overrides a customary (traditional) marriage. The statutory marriage
backed by 'The Marriage Act' completely cancels the other. The Marriage Act
governs statutory marriage in Nigeria. That is why it is simply referred to as
Marriage under the Act.
A statutory marriage has the flavour of the law and recognizes just one man married to one woman. The law defines marriage as between just two people, one man and one woman. A statutory marriage can be conducted in either a registry OR a licensed place of worship (e.g a church).
A 'church' wedding does
not confer any legal status on a marriage if such church is not licensed or if
the license has been revoked by law. We usually mistake a church wedding for a
'statutory marriage' and that is very far from the reality.
A ‘church’ marriage that
does not comply with the processes as stipulated by the Act can best be
described as a party.
Hence, always ensure that your worship centers are
licensed and if it isn't, head to the nearest registry or Local Government Secretariat
to be joined by a Registrar.
The statutory marriage is conducted by a Registrar OR a Minister of a licensed place of worship. Emphasis on LICENSED.
This means that if you were legally joined together by a
Registrar, there is actually no need for a Minister (your pastor, reverend,
bishop, apostle, spiritual leader etc.) to do the same again and vice versa.
Note:
two things must be in place especially, a licensed place and a licensed person
to perform the celebration.
Celebrating in these two
places can at best be 'duplicity'. But we also understand the need especially in
a religious society like Nigeria to want a church to 'bless' your marriage even
after a registry celebration. However, one is enough and okay.
A ‘church marriage’ is not a civil contract. It only becomes one when it is affiliated to a registry and issues marriage certificates.
As such, it is not the church marriage in
itself that is binding in law but the contract that emerges with the signing of
the certificate.
The Big Controversy Between Registry and
Church Wedding in Nigeria
A lot of Muslims and Christians hold that belief.
These set of people do not see the registry wedding as something that is
valuable.
In fact, most Nigerian couples
will prefer to marry in the church or according to Islamic tradition than in the
registry when given the choice.
Many see the religious weddings as the only
legal wedding since they believe it is sanctioned by God. To many Nigerians, religious
wedding supersedes any registry marriage.
Many couples do not consider themselves legally married until after they have done the church wedding. Many people do not even consider the traditional wedding as legal as the religious wedding.
The wedding certificates
issued by religious institutions are seen as the paramount in Nigeria, as such
even old couple still go back to renew their vows in the church if they hadn’t
done it before.
Most Nigerians believe that the religious ceremony puts all the
legal stamps on all marriages, after all they are tying the knot in the
presence of men and God according to the beliefs they hold and that to them
supersedes any registry marriage.
Many Nigerians consider
registry marriage to be invalid that is why we have more religious weddings
than registry weddings in Nigeria.
Religious weddings are more valuable to most
Nigerians than registry weddings. Very few people marry in the registry. The
conventional weddings are the traditional weddings and the religious weddings.
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