CONSUMATION IN MARRIAGE

‘After the no sex/fornication thing in a relationship and you see this(small blokos) on your wedding night, especially when the man was successful in hiding this sad truth under the pretence of religion...............culled from Stella Dimoko’s blog.

Law made adequate provision for everything including this...lol.

 The general rule governing marriage by virtue of section 30(1) of the Matrimonial Causes Act is that no proceeding for dissolution of a marriage may be instituted within two years of the marriage except with the leave of court , this section went further to provide that where such is required before commencement of the proceeding, it shall be granted  except to refuse leave will pose exceptional hardship on the applicant or the case is one involving exceptional depravity on the part of the other party. In AKERELE V. AKERELE (1962) WNLR 328, where the respondent was accused of inordinate sexual demand when the applicant was in a poor health, he was also charged with adultery and infecting the applicant with venereal disease, the trial court held that this was a case that could come under depravity or hardship rule which will impose in the future by failure to grant the divorce.

The reason behind the two years rule is to prevent young men/women from rushing in and out of marriage once they see that what they expected was not in place and also to preserve the marriage institution.

The issues for the determination from the above scenario is whether the man can perform his marital duty irrespective of the size of his ******* and whether the other party was unaware of it, the ground for bringing a petition before the two years rule is by virtue of Section 15(2a-h) of the Matrimonial Causes Act read my write up on DIVORCE.

Section 35 of the Matrimonial Causes Act state that a petition for nullity of marriage cannot however be made by a party suffering from incapacity to consummate the marriage unless the party was unaware of the existence of the incapacity at the time of the marriage and such incapacity is found to be incurable or the respondent refuses to submit to proper treatment. Therefore where one party having knowledge of the incapacity before marriage but hide it from the other, the law will grant divorce even if the marriage is a day old. He who comes to equity must come with clean hand.

The law will not grant petitioner’s petition for divorce based on the size as long has the respondent can perform his marital duties this is the provision of section 36(1) of the MCA such degree shall not be where the court is of the opinion that lapse of time or any other reason that would be harsh and oppressive to the respondent or contrary to public interest to make such a decree (in my own opinion i feel granting dissolution on the ground of the size of ****** will be oppressive on the part of the respondent who can actively perform but blessed with a small ******

The petitioner’s ignorance of the fact constituting the ground for divorce at the time of the marriage is enough ground to grant relief.

Thank you.

 

Oyenike Alliyu-Adebiyi LLB(hons)BL