Piece Of Advice To Women Who Date Married Men With Intention To Be Second Wife Or To Replace The Wife

By Emeka Ugwuonye

I am constantly aware that by very the nature of human beings, there will always be those who would engage in dangerous activities regardless of grave harm to themselves. So, I often find myself advising those who live dangerously, such as women who date married men in the hope that they would become second wife or a replacement to the wife. If you do this, first ask yourself the following questions:

(1) DO YOU KNOW THE TYPE OF MARRIAGE THE MAN HAS?
Even though Nigeria allows polygamy, it is a regulated polygamy. This mean that it is not in all cases that the law allows polygamy. If the man is a Muslim and married his wife under the Islamic Law (the Sharia), yes, as long as he has not already married up to 4 wives, he can marry you. Also, if the man is a Christian or a Pagan and he married under the customary laws of any of the indigenous Nigeria communities, there is hope that he can marry you as his second or third wife. This is because Islamic law allows polygamy up to a maximum of 4 wives, and the customary law allows polygamy without limit to the number of wives.

However, if the married man you are dating (whether Christian, Muslim or Pagan) married his current wife under the Marriage Act 1970 Laws of the Federation, he cannot have a second wife. Again, polygamy in Nigeria is a regulated polygamy. It is not for every man. Make sure your own man is permitted by law to have a second wife. If you make the mistake of marrying a man who is prohibited from polygamy, your name will become Judy.

Many people do not understand this simple point – that even though Nigerian law allows polygamy, it is not for everybody. Polygamy is regulated in Nigeria. You must make sure that the law allows you to have a second wife. Apparently, even a supposed well-informed Actor/Celebrity like Yul Edochie did not understand that he COULD NOT have a second wife, that he was disqualified from having a second wife. It also did not occur to him that he would be committing a crime by having a second wife. Judy Austin also did not know this. That was why the two have been proudly parading themselves, not realizing that if we follow the laws of Nigeria strictly, they could be arrested and prosecuted for that.

Please, if you don’t remember anything I wrote on this post, remember that polygamy in Nigeria is a regulated activity. It is not for every man. If you are a man and you want to have a second wife, make sure that your first marriage was not under the Marriage Act. Also, if you are a woman and don’t want your husband to have a second wife, make sure he marries you under the Marriage Act.

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(2) DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT THE WIFE OF THE MAN YOU DATE CAN SUE YOU?
This is another thing many did not know. The law allows the wife to sue any other woman that has an affair her husband, if the marriage was under the Marriage Act. She can sue you for damages and the court will award damages against you. This is the risk every side-chick should be aware of. You are living dangerously because the wife of your sugar-daddy can sue you. She can sue you even if you have ended the relationship with her husband. So, it will be a double tragedy when the man is forced to end the relationship and you still get sued for what you did with him in the past.

What will happen if you had two children with the married man before his wife sues you? Indeed, the children will be perfect evidence that you did what you are accused of doing. You will likely be found liable without much effort.

What will happen if you and man have been parading yourselves as husband and wife in addition to having two children together? Again, you better plead guilty if sued. You cannot deny that you had sex with her husband when you have two children together and you have been parading yourselves as husband and wife. The case will be a slam dunk.

(3) DO YOU REALIZE THAT THE MAN IS NOT REALLY YOUR HUSBAND EVEN THOUGH HE CARRIED WINE ON YOUR HEAD AND PAID BRIDE PRICE FOR YOU?
If a man cannot have a second wife under the law because he is disqualified from polygamy, it doesn’t matter that he paid what would have been your bride price. He is still not your husband. That is because he cannot contract a valid marriage outside the marriage he is already in. You will remain only his girlfriend, even if you have had 10 children for him and you have lived with him for 100 years. What makes you a wife is not the number of children you had for the man or the number of years you lived together or the number of times you hailed him on social media. What makes you a wife is the law and if the law says you cannot be his wife, you will not be his wife regardless of what you do or what you say or what you call yourself.

Also, note that it is not the number of favorable comments you get on your social media posts that will make you his wife. Even if you like, get all the people on Facebook to hail you and call you his wife. That is not what makes a woman a man’s wife. It is the law, and the law does not give a damn about what is said on social media.

(4) ARE YOU AWARE OF CERTAIN LEGAL PRESUMPTIONS ABOUT PATERNITY?
If you are living with a man who is not your husband (even though you foolishly assumed you are his wife) and you have children while living with him, those children are not necessarily presumed to be his children. The law presumes that any child born by your wife is your biological child even without any paternity test. However, the law does not extend such presumption to children born by your girlfriend (even though you had mistakenly thought she was your wife). If the man and woman were not married, a number of people have the right to demand that paternity be established by evidence, rather than by presumption. For instance, Let us assume that Mr. P gives birth to Mr. Y, and Mr. Y gets his side-chick pregnant and ignorantly begins to call his side chick his wife. Any descendant of Mr. P has right to demand proof that the children of the side-chick are Mr. Y’s biological children. They have that right because otherwise they could be treating the woman’s children as their relatives when they are not. Any other man who claims he has dated that woman or had even had a one-night stand with her after getting drunk at a club can demand paternity test to ensure that it was not during the one-night stand that she conceived of the pregnancy. Indeed, any man could be the father of the children you got from a man that is not your husband, even if that man was wrongly parading himself as your husband. In as much as the law does not recognize you as married to that man, there is not presumption of paternity in favor of the man. And certainly, the children of the man from his legitimate wife will have the right to demand paternity test for the children of the man from his side-chick. They have the right to be sure that this child called their half-brother is really their half-brother. They cannot presume that the child are related to them simply because their father lost his mind and called a girlfriend his wife.

WHY THIS POST AT THIS TIME?
From the recent cases we discussed on this platform, it occurred to us that there is an alarmingly large number of women who are proudly looking for a married man they would convert to their husbands. Some are looking for some married men they would bear children for. Also, we discovered that there are many men who did not know that polygamy in Nigeria is regulated, that not everybody is allowed to have a polygamous marriage. The level of ignorance on this subject is so astonishing that I felt the need to make a special post on it. You will be living dangerously if you are a woman dating a married man with the intention to snatch him or to become his second wife. It is a path you should thread with caution. Many are just realizing that it is a very treacherous road to walk.

As for the men: you like to talk about what your forefathers did and about your right to marry more than one wife. Please be careful. Let the rat not jump into water with the lizard. Make sure the law allows you to do it. Otherwise, you will be that rat that followed the lizard into the cold river. Indeed, my advice to you is: “Don’t try it, brother. Perish the thought. It is not worth the trouble.”

NOTE:
Every post you see on Due Process Advocates (DPA) is also posted either on Eculaw Group (EG) or DPA Family Law Clinic Page (FLC). My posts can be shared from EG or FLC.