‘Abolish marriage by elopement’
By ARTHUR MWANSARESPONDENTS consulted in a research on customary marriages have called for the abolishing of elopement and that marriages conducted through this method should not be recognised as valid.
According to a research by Zambia Law Development Commission (ZLDC) on the development of customary marriages legislation, respondents said that such marriages are undesirable as they violate the procedure to contract a valid customary law marriage.
ZLDC deputy director Joyce Macmillan said respondents felt that elopement undermined the reasons for requiring parental consent for marriage.
Ms Macmillan told participants at the just ended two-day consultative workshop on the development of legislation to regulate marriages contracted under customary law that the research showed that marriages by elopement in all ethnic groups occur although the degree and form may vary.
She said research showed that such marriages are most common in areas where marriage payments are too exorbitant.
“These marriages are formalized by charging a punitive amount of money for elopement, then the usual marriage payments,” Ms Macmillan said.
Ms Macmillan said findings also indicate similarities in the way different ethnic groups handle matters of pre-marital pregnancies.
“These cases exist in all communities and the man responsible is charged for deflowering the girl with the commonest fine being a cow or kwacha equivalent,” she said.
Ms Macmillan also said polygamy and procedure for subsequent marriages is a custom of having more than one wife during the subsistence of the first marriage.
She said findings also confirm that polygamy is practised and accepted among all ethnic groups for varying reasons from flimsy to more serious ones
And Supreme court judge justice Hilda Chibomba said following a reference from the Minister of Justice, the ZLDC embarked on a research exercise to gather relevant information to regulate marriages contracted under customary Law.
Justice Chibomba said the Commission began the exercise by setting up a desk review of relevant literature.
She said ZLDC undertook filed research to gather information among the different ethnic groups in selected districts in all the nine provinces of the country.
Justice Chibomba said an issue paper was then prepared and disseminated in order to elicit stakeholder’s response on the subject matter between February and October 2009.
She said the rationale used to select the districts was based on geographic stratification of ethnic groups in the province.
Justice Chibomba said the sample of respondents in all the research sites included traditional leaders,
Over 40 Lusaka based participants from government departments, civil society organisations and non-governmental organisations attended the two-day stakeholder’s consultative workshop.
The workshop organised by the Zambia Law Development Commission was held from 28 to 29 July, 2010 at Andrews Motel.
Participants recommended that all harmful cultural practices be identified and proscribed in the proposed legislation to regulate customary law marriages.
The consultative workshops will be conducted in all the nine provinces of Zambia.
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