Dear Mirror Lawyer,
I married my wife under the customary law in Ghana in May 2023.
Our marriage has been blessed with a beautiful baby girl.
I was subsequently offered a job in Australia, and I relocated my wife and child with me.
Before we left for Australia, we had a very intimate wedding ceremony in Central Baptist Church, where we signed the marriage register.
While in Australia, I met this woman whom I have become fond of and would like to marry in addition to my wife.
I know within our culture (I am Akan), I can marry as many women as I can, but my wife does not agree with me.
I love my wife, but I also love this Australian lady.
Please let me know what I can do, as I don’t want to lose either of them.
Anthony Ofori.
Dear Ofori, you are correct in saying that with customary marriages, the law permits you to marry as many women as you can harmoniously live with, as it is a potentially polygamous type of marriage.
In Ghana, this is permitted under the law and is recognised in the Marriages Act(CAP 127) and in various decided cases by the courts such as Graham v Graham.
However, I noted that you also mentioned you married your wife under the ordinance.
Therefore, you have converted your customary marriage to one under the ordinance.
This is because customary marriage and ordinance marriages are mutually exclusive and as such, cannot coexist.
Considering this, you cannot then marry your Australian lover, as you are already married to your wife under the ordinance.
If you do go ahead and marry her, your marriage to her will be null and void and will not be recognised legally.
Your only solution is to divorce your wife and remarry your new lady.
Please bear in mind that divorce also has its legal implications, such as property sharing, custody of your daughter, amongst others.
Even if you were married only under customary law to your wife, because customary marriages are only peculiar to Ghana and not Australia, you will not be able to marry your new lover in Australia while living there.
Another danger you are likely to face with your contemplated marriage is criminal in nature.
It is against the criminal laws of the state to contract a second marriage while still married under the ordinance.
The offence is called bigamy. Section 262 of the Criminal and Other Offences Act, 1960, Act 29 provides that whoever commits bigamy shall be guilty of a misdemeanour.
A person, therefore, commits bigamy when, knowing that a marriage subsists between him or her and any person, goes through the ceremony of marriage, whether in Ghana or elsewhere, with some other person.
The law further says that whoever, being unmarried, goes through the ceremony of marriage, whether in Ghana or elsewhere, with a person whom he or she knows to be married to another person is guilty of a misdemeanour, whether the other party to the ceremony has or has not such guilty knowledge as to be guilty of bigamy.
Further, if, having contracted an ordinance marriage with any person, you marry or purport to marry any other person under customary law, or if, having been married to any person by customary law, you go through an ordinance ceremony of marriage with any other person, you will be squarely caught by the Act.
The exception provided in the law is first when you have not heard or seen your partner for a continuous period of seven years, in which case you will presume he or she is dead, and secondly if the marriage in respect of which the Act was committed and the former marriage were both contracts under customary law.
