Background of the Study
Marriage is a legal union of a man and women as husband and wife. It is usually formalized through some type of solemnization, which may be wedding in the church, mosque or contracted in the registry or in accordance with native laws and custom. It is a life-long union full of expectations and obligations. One of these obligations is the expectation that each should help the other to grow, to promote a life of fidelity and sincerity to each other so that the mutual trust required for the union to grow can be strongly safeguarded. There should be no problem or conflict between the couple that can justify divorce or separation.
Marriage assumes any of the following major types, monogamy and polygamy as well as secondary types of marriage as practiced in different societies in Africa such as levirate marriage, ghost marriage (Ezema, 2001:24).
Monogamy involves a man marrying one woman at a time. While polygamy are of two subdivisions; polyandry and polygyny. Polyandry is a type of marriage in which a woman
is married to several men. Polygyny is a system of marriage in which one man marries more than one wife.
