{"id":461401,"date":"2018-02-05T01:30:25","date_gmt":"2018-02-05T01:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ghana-mma.com\/2018\/02\/05\/why-your-glamorous-marriage-may-be-invalid-legal-practitioner-explains\/"},"modified":"2018-02-05T01:30:25","modified_gmt":"2018-02-05T01:30:25","slug":"why-your-glamorous-marriage-may-be-invalid-legal-practitioner-explains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/02\/05\/why-your-glamorous-marriage-may-be-invalid-legal-practitioner-explains\/","title":{"rendered":"Why your glamorous marriage may be invalid &#8211; Legal practitioner explains"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"medsection1\">\n<!-- End of html generated by this->header() --><\/p>\n<p class=\"floatLeft\">General News of Monday,  5 February 2018<\/p>\n<p class=\"floatRight\"><strong>Source: <\/strong>adomonline.com<\/p>\n<p>2018-02-05<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-left\">\n<p class=\"article-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/74700012.295.jpg\" alt=\"Couple Marriage\" title=\"Couple Marriage\" width=\"295\" height=\"157\" \/><span class=\"image_caption\"><span>File photo<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"noPrint\">\n<div id=\"537626303\" style=\"width:300;height:250;margin:0;padding:0\">\n<p>\t\t  <noscript><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"b2ad7fa7fd\" name=\"b2ad7fa7fd\" src=\"http:\/\/ghanaweb-d.openx.net\/w\/1.0\/afr?auid=537626303&amp;cb=151125813973067\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"300\" height=\"250\"><a href=\"\/\/ghanaweb-d.openx.net\/w\/1.0\/rc?cs=b2ad7fa7fd&amp;cb=151125813973067\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/1517794225_500_ai\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/iframe><\/noscript><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"clear:right\">If your marriage, no matter how well-attended it may be, wasn\u2019t held at a registered church gazetted by law, you are not properly married, according to private legal practitioner, Oladele Aribike.<\/p>\n<p>Likewise, if the pastor or the officiating minister who superintended over your ordinance marriage isn\u2019t also gazetted by the state, your marriage is invalid.<\/p>\n<p>According to Mr. Oladele Aribike who was providing legal perspective on Adom TV\u2019s legal education show, me wo case anaa, a church or venue for marriage should be licensed under a District Assembly or for that matter, a local government authority.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Aribike also added that a pastor or an officiating minister for a marriage should be gazetted by the state before they could qualify to officiate any ordinance marriage lest, such marriages will be null and void.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf any church or officiating ministers fail to register their churches or themselves, every marriage they officiate would be null and void from the start\u201d, he stressed.<\/p>\n<p>Providing further clarification on the matter, Mr. Aribike said the only process by which a church and an officiating pastor could qualify to officiate a marriage under ordinance was by applying to the Ministry of Justice, through the Registrar General Department.<\/p>\n<p>Also Read: Wives have equal share in husbands\u2019 properties even if they contribute nothing towards acquiring them \u2013 Lawyer<\/p>\n<p>In a response to host of the show, Afia Pokua, on the difference between \u201cblessings\u201d and ordinance marriage, a member of the panel, lawyer Kwabena Buabeng Mensah, said it was important for people who are married under customary law not to confuse \u201cblessings\u201d with ordinance marriage.<\/p>\n<p>According to him, a \u201cblessing\u201d is not regarded as a wedding or marriage under the ordinance, adding that a couple could have a valid marriage when after a customary marriage, they decide to register such marriage in the court, an act he described as the \u2018\u2019conversion of marriage\u2019\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>The panel was discussing a case in which a lady said her husband had been cheating on her and has subsequently impregnated his mistress with whom he now stays, thereby abandoning his duties at home as a husband and a father.<\/p>\n<p>Reacting to the lady\u2019s case, Lawyer Buabeng explained that the law frowned on bigamy, adding that it was illegal for a man to marry another woman when he is already in a registered marriage.<\/p>\n<p>He added, however, that a man can marry as many wives if he is married under customary law which hasn\u2019t been registered, describing such marriages as \u201cpotentially polygamous\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>On whether a relative can stand in for a fellow relative who isn\u2019t present during a marriage ceremony, Mr. Oladele said it was possible under customary marriage but not under ordinance law.<\/p>\n<p>He added that one could be imprisoned for a term not more than three years when they engage in what he described as \u201cmarriage by proxy.<\/p>\n<p><!-- uploaded by: 32 updated by: 32 --><\/p>\n<p><!-- Start of html generated by this->footer() -->\n<\/div>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a style=\"display:none\" rel=\"follow\" href=\"http:\/\/megatheme.ir\/\" title=\"\u0642\u0627\u0644\u0628 \u0648\u0631\u062f\u067e\u0631\u0633\">\u0642\u0627\u0644\u0628 \u0648\u0631\u062f\u067e\u0631\u0633<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>General News of Monday, 5 February 2018 Source: adomonline.com 2018-02-05 File photo If your marriage, no matter how well-attended it may be, wasn\u2019t held at a registered church gazetted by law, you are not properly married, according to private legal practitioner, Oladele Aribike. Likewise, if the pastor or the officiating minister who superintended over your [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":461402,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-461401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461401\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}