ENFORCEABILITY OF AGE LIMIT FOR MARRIAGE IN NIGERIA

ENFORCEABILITY OF AGE LIMIT FOR MARRIAGE IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Child marriage is an issue that has generated a great deal of publicity and controversy. This is a question that brings a lot of people’s emotions. Child marriage is linked to many factors, including religion, traditions and customs. Child marriage usually refers to two separate phenomena that take place in some societies. The first and most common practice is for young children to marry adults. In fact, most often young girls are married to men. The second practice is a form of arranged marriage, where the parents of her two children from different families arrange future marriages. In practice, engaged people do not often meet until the wedding, which takes place when both are considered to be of marriageable age. It depends if you are between adults and children. In other words, marriage can only be forced if there is no problem of child marriage. So the question arises, “What is the legal age limit for marriage?”, and the answer seems uncertain. The law has made an attempt in this regard. For example, in Nigeria, the law sets a certain age as the minimum age for marriage. The problem, however, is that these laws are not uniformly applied. In fact, the age of marriage law in southern Nigeria is not consistent with the Shariah law that applies in parts of northern Nigeria. Again, local customary law seems to apply different criteria for determining the age of marriage. We are also trying to determine the validity of these practices based on plausibility tests. I’m trying to find out their conventions regarding age. The work also examines practices in other countries regarding child marriage and marriageable age. A method for achieving standardization of marriage age is shown at the end of the work. This work is divided into five chapters. Chapter 1 provides a general introduction and Chapter 2 provides an overview of the laws governing marriageable age in Nigeria. Chapter 3 deals with the common law age of marriage and Chapter 4 deals with the enforceability of age limits for marriage in foreign jurisdictions. Finally, Chapter 5 deals with conclusions and recommendations.