The Ghanaian woman who sued her husband for failing to give her a ‘white wedding’

In 1967, a Ghanaian woman who was married under Ghanaian customary rites sued her husband for failing to give her a white wedding.

The woman sued her husband for failing to perform an ordinance marriage after he had earlier promised her, he would.

Justice Ollenu defined a customary law marriage in Yaotey v Quaye [1961] GLR 573 in the following terms:

A customary law marriage is a union of the man's family and the woman's family. It imposes rights and duties upon the two families. The woman's family gains the right to perform certain rites in certain eventualities and the man's family also gains the right to perform certain rites in certain eventualities.

For this particular case: “The parties were married under customary law. The wife instituted the present action against the husband for a breach of promise to marry her under the Marriage Ordinance, Cap. 127 (1951 Rev.).”

The lawyer for the husband argued whether a couple who were married under customary while being married can sue the other for breach of promise to marry under the Ordinance.

In resolving the issue, the court had to decide whether a spouse married under customary law was capable of bringing an action in contract or tort against the other spouse.

This court ruled that a woman married under customary law was capable of suing her husband in contract or tort in the same way as she could sue any other person. The legal fiction that husband and wife were one in law was not part of the customary law. Smith v. Smith [1965] G.L.R. 730 considered.

Secondly, a customary marriage was distinct from an Ordinance marriage; the incidents of the two types of marriage were different. Therefore, if a woman married under customary law had considered the promise to convert the marriage into an Ordinance one, she was entitled to sue for breach of that promise.

In essence, the court ruled in favour of the wife, saying she had every right to sue her husband for refusing to have a “white wedding”.

SSD/NOQ

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