Is the Payment of Bride-Price Not a Human Rights Issue?

Abstract

The payment of bride-price as an element of customary law marriage is recognized under Nigerian law. Most of the discussion and legal interventions on the issue have centred on the propriety and control of the relative exorbitance among communities and rarely on its essential validity or to question its very existence. This short paper examines the subject of bride-price under Nigerian customary law and questions its continued practice in the light of International human rights primary jurisprudence. It takes the view that the very essence of the practice suffers a philosophical privation of a devaluation of the “personhood” and status of women in historical/traditional human society, and that it also in its effect reinforces that privation. Inequality, subordination, a certain discrimination, and disempowerment are some of the issues that attend the cultural phenomenon of bride-price in Nigeria. These issues, if not immediately apparent in marriage and family settings, ultimately affect the quality of life of the woman and her human dignity. And human dignity is at the core of human rights.