Living with, having children with a man whose ordinance marriage is not legally untied is risky-Legal practitioner advises ‘side chicks’
It does not matter if the man left her twenty years, went away, and did all kinds of things,”
A private legal practitioner and family life counselor, Kweku Yamoah Paintsil has cautioned women who live with and also bear children with men who leave their ordinance wives without properly untying them in the law courts.
According to him, until the marriage has been dissolved, the relationship exists in law thus the ordinance wife will inherit the man’s properties in event of his death.
“Especially with ordinance marriage, until the marriage has been dissolved, the relationship exists in law. What it means for instance is that, if the man walks away from the marriage, goes to have children with other women and lives with them at the time of his death.
“We go unto the records, the marriage has not been dissolved, the wife is still the wife of the marriage for purposes of distribution of the man’s property,” he noted.
Speaking on Home Affairs on JoyFM, Mr. Kweku Paintsil noted that the duration in which a man leaves his wife will not matter in making the above decision.
He further noted that for as long as the marriage has not been dissolved, the wife of the ordinance marriage will determine the man’s property if he dies without a will.
“It does not matter if the man left her twenty years, went away, and did all kinds of things,” he said.
“For as long as the marriage has not been dissolved, the wife of the ordinance marriage, then it is the wife who is the Mrs and she will for purposes of the law be the spouse to determine the man’s property,” he added.
Additionally, however, the legal practitioner noted that in such a situation, it is the man’s children born outside the marriage and the main wife’s children together with their mum who will benefit from the man’s property.
“So if the man has got five children by her, 2 children outside, 3 elsewhere, they are the ones with her who will take the man’s property. That is the way it is. So you don’t just walk away from marriages unless you untie it properly only in a court of law and nowhere else,”
In conclusion, he advised wives to rather go to court to dissolve their ordinance marriages when they lose interest rather than cohabiting with other men or even marrying them because it amounts to bigamy which is a criminal offense.
