Good day dear friends of the Hive nation. Hive Learners brought a topical issue this weekend. As we all know, marriage is one of the institutions facing threat because of the individual perspective to life, interest, affection, desire, goals, emotion and all that connects to personal feeling.
First, let's get to understand what marriage is all about. In my school days, we defined marriage as the union between a man and a woman to become husband and wife. Later in life, as I grew up, I came to know that marriage is not just a union, it is a contract between adults to become man and wife. There could be more definitions order than these. Our concern here is the fact that a contract or agreement is made for the two people to live together as a couple.
I would love to begin this discussion by first stating that marital relationships should be built on love. When love is the foundation of any marriage or marital relationship, then there will be no fear of insecurity. One truth that must be upheld is that laws like prenup came into existence because of the greedy happening of the past. Over time, more laws are being added or enacted as reviews are made with happenings in marriages across the globe.
While growing up, I attended a few wedding ceremonies in our local church and saw couples taking marital vows. It was like an oath. A covenant soaked in blood before the Almighty God, couples took this agreement to live together in love and unity, for better for worse until death do them part.
Today, people do not have respects for the oath they mafr while agreeing to settle down with their spouses. One thing that is a causal agent is when a marriage is established on material possession or body structure, with time, one does not seem to have the possession or good bodily curves again, the marriage begin to fade.
However, in this present time, I feel that to secure a marriage, it is important to seal it with a prenuptial agreement, signed in the presence of a competent marriage registry. I wish to state clearly that there are numerous benefits for both couples when they seal their marriage with a prenup.
THE VITALITY OF A PRENUP
Customization:
A partner in a marriage who has signed a prenuptial agreement is customized to belong to his or her partner. This will at least protect him from infidelity which when detected can lead to the official collapse of the marriage contract. Since we live a polygamous society, a prenup becomes essential. It is worthy of note that men who become polygamous have the right to do so because there former marriages does not involve a prenup where they become customized to their first partners, knowing that no registry will agree a man to marry more than one wife. With a prenup, marriage is One man, One Machete matter.
Property Protection:
Most gluttonous ladies are ready to break into a marriage to "snatch" the man becaualse of what they man is supposedly must have acquire. These urchins are on the brink of reaping from where they have not sowed. With a prenup in place, only a legally married woman has access to the property of her husband and vice versa. No tradition is permitted to lay claim to a man's property after his demise except stated in the will of the man. This is the beauty of prenup. Whatever is possessed during the period the marriage lasted is owned by both parties by law.
Protection of Inheritance Rights:
There are no cases of usage or application of prenuptial agreement in my country Nigeria but it has heard that family inheritance is not a commonplace for distribution in a large family at the dissolution of a marriage.
By this, I mean that a family business that has been established before a marriage is knotted does not have the rights to claim ownership or share in the family business.
Conflict Reduction:
Domestic abusive which is on the rampage can be curtailed by prenuptial agreement. I was opportune to mediate in a case between a couple who had married about three years and have a son together. Before you knew it, the man started beating the wife for a no just cause. In one of such nights when the so called husband would beat the woman, she made up her mind to report to the social welfare office. She had suddenly become tired of the marriage and wanted to quit.
On reaching the social welfare office, the guy could not deny the abuse. He was to be jailed but one thing led to the other the lady insisted on a divorce.
The couple were asked to stay apart for a period of three months to rethink the decision. After the time of separation, the man was placed under a counselling and anger control programme. But at the end, it ended the marriage.
In the judgement of the welfare, all property they have incurred during the marriage was passed on to the son, the only child from the marriage. Thanks to the prenuptial agreement signed before the marriage.
In a nutshell, despite having to say the above benefits of prenuptial agreement, the only thing that makes a marriage to last long is love. When love rules, there will be no torment.