Reconciliation of women's rights and cultural practices: Polygamy in ghana

Commonwealth Law Bulletin

Volumn 36, Issue 2, 2010, Pages 325-332

  Archampong, Elizabeth A ^a  

^a KWAME NKRUMAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY   (Ghana)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 77953661557     PISSN: 03050718     EISSN: 17505976     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/03050718.2010.481401     Document Type: Article

References (24)

1. The term polygyny - which is 'the condition or practice of having more than one wife at one time' - is actually the most appropriate term, but in Ghana polygamy - which refers more generally to the condition or practice of having more than one spouse at one time - is the term mostly used. Thus, in this article polygamy and polygyny are used interchangeably.
2. See SO Gyimah, 'Polygamous Marital Structure and Child Survivorship in Ghana: Age Dependent Effect?' (2005) Population Studies Centre Discussion Paper, Number 05-13, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada. Gyimah has argued that, 'rural residents and less educated women are more likely to be in polygamous marriages... Women with these characteristics, however, tend to be more traditional in outlook and traditionalism is associated with low status of women.'
3. A Dwamena-Aboagye, 'Polygamy, Equality and the Gender Debate: A Comparative Study of Ghana and the United States' in: J Bond (ed), Voices of African Women: Women's Rights in Ghana, Uganda, and Tanzania (Carolina Academic Press, Durham, NC 2005) at 190.
4. Ibid. at 193.
5. D Pellow and N Chazan, Ghana-Coping with Uncertainty (Westview Press Inc, Boulder, CO 1986) at 96.
6. K Awusabo-Asare, 'Interpretations of Demographic Concepts: The Case of Ghana' (1988) 14(4) Population and Development Review 675 at 678.
7. See F Dolphyne, The Emancipation of Women: An African Perspective (Ghana Universities Press, Accra 1991) at 17.
8. J Azumah, 'Muslim-Christian Relations in Ghana: Too Much Meat Does Not Spoil the Soup' (2000) 36 Current Dialogue 1 http://www.wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/interreligious/cd36-01.html.
9. A Gaye and M Njie, 'Family Law in the Gambia' in C Grant Bowman and A Kuenyehia (eds), Women and Law in Sub-Saharan Africa (Sedco Publishing Ltd, Accra 2003) at 35-6, have argued that the condition laid down by the Quran that a man marry multiple wives only if he can treat them all equitably in terms of material things as well as affection has been wrong interpreted as the Quran granting every Muslim man an absolute and fundamental right to marry multiple wives. The proper interpretation of that part of the Quran, the authors argue, is that since it is humanly impossible to treat two or more women equitably the verse is rather a strong recommendation for monogamy.
10. National censuses have consistently showed that there are slightly more women than men in Ghana.
11. M Ndulo, 'The Changing Nature of Customary Marriage in Zambia' in Bowman and Kuenyehia (n 9) at 34.
12. A similar challenge is evident in debates on female genital mutilation.
13. The male-dominated nature of Ghanaian society is reflected in the strong resistance a provision seeking to abolish consent to the use of force in marriage in the Domestic Violence Bill faced when it was placed before the Ghanaian Parliament in 2006. The Domestic Violence Act was eventually passed with that provision omitted.
14. B Sam, 'Discrimination in the Traditional Marriage and Divorce System in Ghana: Looking at the Problem from a Human Rights Perspective' in Bond (n 3) 205 at 212.
15. Ibid. at 211.
16. Ibid. where Sam observed that 'studies show that primarily women perform the work of child-rearing' in polygamous marriages.
17. See Kimberly Harding, 'Marital Rape', International Women's Day Newsletter, McGill Centre for Research and Teaching on Women (MCRTW) at 7, online: http://www.mcgill.ca/files/mcrtw/page_7.pdf accessed 24 February 2009.
18. See generally U Wanitzek, 'Integration of Personal Laws in the Situation of Women in Ghana: The Matrimonial Causes Act of 1971 and its Application by the Courts' (1991) Third World Legal Studies 75.
19. A Kuenyehia, 'Distribution of Matrimonial Property on Dissolution of Marriage: A Re-Appraisal' (1990-92) 18 UGLJ 94. A similar scenario confronts women in polygamous marriage upon the death of their husbands; the Intestate Succession Law, PNDC L111 of 1985, provides for a wife receiving one-sixteenth of her deceased spouse's estate without acknowledging the possibility of there being several wives.
20. Bowman and Kuenyehia (n 9) at 37.
21. Trokosi is a form of religious bondage involving mostly young virgin girls, who are sent to live and serve in the shrine of a fetish priest as reparation for crimes committed by members of their families: see RK Ameh, 'Reconciling Human Rights and Traditional Practices: The Anti-Trokosi Campaign in Ghana' (2004) 19(2) CJLS 23.
22. H Gbedemah, 'Trokosi: Twentieth Century Female Bondage - A Ghanaian Case Study' in: Bond (n 3) at 83. In 1998, the Ghanaian Criminal Code (Amendment) Act of 1998 (Act 554) clause 17 amended the Criminal Code, 1960 (Act 29) by inserting clause 17 as section 314A to ban the practice of 'customary servitude' (trokosi). The 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana, at Article 14, provides that '[e]very person has a right to personal liberty' and at Article 16, provides that, 'No person shall be held in slavery and servitude or be required to perform forced labour'.
23. J Fenrich and TE Higgins, 'Special Report, Promise Unfulfilled: Law, Culture, and Women's Inheritance Rights in Ghana' (2001) 25 Fordham Int'l LJ 259.
24. See Ibid, all of whom on the contrary link polygamy to women's unequal status to their male counterparts in Ghana.