The Act had a rough passage through Parliament over the
issue of lobola, which will now for practical purposes need to be paid in
solemnised customary unions where the district custom has this, but possibly
not in unregistered customary unions that are later registered without
solemnisation.
But eventually a formula for lobola was found, the Act
passed both Houses and has been assented to by President Mnangagwa and gazetted
as law on Friday last week.
Lobola has never been a factor in civil law and church law
marriages and such marriages remain a valid option for anyone not wanting to
pay lobola
All marriages in Zimbabwe are now equal, with a single
register of marriages maintained by a single Registrar of Marriages. But there
are distinct differences between civil marriages and customary marriages, the
main one being that a customary marriage is potentially polygamous with
different ways of solemnising these marriages.
Besides the two types of marriage, there is a civil
partnership. This is the informal living together of a couple in a genuine
domestic basis but without any marriage whatsoever.
This determines the rights and obligations of the couple,
and especially the new Act makes it clear, any property or assets acquired
during the partnership will be distributed in the same way that property is
distributed when a married couple divorces, using the same law.
In all marriages and civil partnerships, both partners have
to be aged 18 or over and there has to be explicit agreement by both partners.
Underage marriages and forced marriages see those involved, except the child or
the forced partner, facing criminal charges and jail terms of up to five years.
The Act goes into some detail on marriages and potential
marriages or near marriages to ensure that the age and active consent rules
apply in anything that vaguely resembles a marriage.
The partners in all marriages whatsoever have equal rights
and obligations both during the subsistence of the marriage and at any
dissolution. This is being backed by amendments to the Child Protection Act
which will make it clear that both parents have equal rights when it comes to
children. This journey to full legal equality has taken some time in almost all
cultures.
While there is no change, except the age limit, in the law
governing civil law marriages, the law on registering or solemnising customary
unions has undergone a major revision so that these are now solemnised by
magistrates or the local chief, rather than the district administrators, and a
monogamous couple in a customary marriage can convert this into a civil
marriage if they wish, pulling down the colonial brick wall between the two
types of marriages.
Even unregistered customary unions, a very common way of
getting married in Zimbabwe, now have to be registered within three months of
the creation of the union if the couple does not wish to go through the
solemnisation process before a magistrate or chief.
Failure to register the union though does not affect the
validity of the marriage at customary law with regard to the status,
guardianship, custody and succession rights of children of the union.
The main result of all these changes should see major
practical and conceptual changes in how Zimbabweans get married. In colonial
times people were locked into either a customary marriage, that had to be
registered at the office of the native or district commissioner, or the civil
law marriage, registered when the marriage ceremony took place.
After independence, most couples actually wanted to be
married under both customary law and civil law. Because of the rigid divide,
the custom grew up of having a customary marriage first, but not registering
this, and then having the civil law marriage later, but registering that one.
Now even unregistered customary unions have to be
registered, although they should be solemnised before a magistrate or a chief,
but those in a monogamous customary marriage can later contract a civil law
marriage, and so people can now have the double ceremonies under the two types
of marriage laws.
While magistrates are automatically marriage officers,
chiefs become marriage officers for customary marriages in the district where
they hold office and, as at present, ministers of religion can be licensed to
be marriage officers for civil law marriages, where the law is very similar to
most church laws so there is no conflict: Herald
0 comments:
Post a Comment