A businesswoman simply identified as Fatima has narrated the ordeals she allegedly faces in her marriage.
According to her, her husband is so deeply into womanising that he has up to nine concubines.
Fatima said this in Ibadan, Oyo State capital, on Friday when the man dragged her to court for divorce.
The man too, Olanrewaju Adeniran, accused her of aggression, while also saying she had stopped having sex with him.
Fatima told a Mapo Grade A Customary Court: “Adeniran has no fewer than eight concubines and some of them even came around to give me gifts anytime we did naming ceremonies.
“In fact, it came to a point when Adeniran kept telling me that he wanted to marry another wife.”
But the husband insisted that she was so troublesome that his brother had to chase them away from his (brother’s) house where they used to stay.
Besides, he denied being a womaniser.
But the duo’s case might be more complex as the judge said they were never duly married because Adeniran never paid bride price on her, despite the fact that they had been together for 27 years.
Delivering judgment, the President of the court, Mrs S.M. Akintayo held that native law and custom in Nigeria provided that for any marriage to be considered valid, the man must pay bride price to the parents of the wife.
Citing various sections of the law to support her judgment, Akintayo concluded that there was no marriage to be dissolved in the first place between Adeniran and Fatima as a result of absence of dowry.
She also said that other basic necessities were not done to consider Adeniran and Fatima’s togetherness as a marriage.
“Merely asking whether Fatima loved Adeniran which Fatima’s father did was not enough to validate their togetherness as a customary marriage.
“It is a wrong assumption to continue to believe that once there is a child or children between a man and a woman, they are husband and wife or married.
“No, there is no marriage between them, they are only cohabiting, they are merely living together in the same house,” Akintayo said.
The court’s president however, granted an order of perpetual injunction restraining Fatima from further harassing, disturbing, intimidating and interfering in the life of Adeniran henceforth.
“She usually accuses me of womanising,” the petitioner said.
