Who should be a witness during your marriage ceremony?

The groom and grooms men pose for a photo.

What you need to know:

Debate. Everyone wishes for a convenient wedding but the prerequisite of having a married bestman or maid of honour has not left the couples of the day happy as Brian Mutebi finds out.

Peter Nuwagaba and Ivan Ayinebyona are two good friends that attend a local Anglican church in Kampala. Their friendship started as far back as university days where they both studied the same course, Social Sciences. Even after university, the two friends rented an apartment in Namirembe, a Kampala suburb as they searched for jobs. Two years after graduation, Nuwagaba was preparing for his wedding and Ayinebyona turned out his favourite candidate for best man.

To Nuwagaba’s disappointment, the reverend at the church they attended informed him that unless Ayinebyona was married, he could not be his friend’s best man. “I explained to the reverend that Ayinebyona was my best friend and I wanted him for a best man. This is because I did not want a stranger to stand by me as best man on such a memorable day of my life,” Nuwagaba says. The reverend said it was not “proper” for an unmarried man to “stand as surety” for someone getting married in church.

Experience counts
Reverend Stephen Kamya, the chaplain of Uganda Technical College, Elgon, in Mbale says the laws of the Anglican Church only allow married individuals to be marriage witnesses. The witness or commonly known as best man or maid of honour signs on the couple’s marriage certificate as a witness to that marriage. “The church requires you to have a witness to your marriage and a witness must be one who is married,” he says.
He notes that the witness is supposed to counsel the couple on marriage issues and for this purpose they must be married. “We believe that a married person is well-suited for that role otherwise with no experience, what will you share with the other person?” he wonders. To this end, the church believes one cannot give what they do not have.

Strangers do not follow up
This has caused some couples to pick on married people for witnesses not because they are friends or attached in any way but by virtue of such people being married. However, people like Alex Bakiika,31, an engineer says witnesses chosen for their marital status may never play their supposed roles like following up on the couple after the wedding day to find out how they are fairing. “You find that in circumstances like those, what the witness did was simply to sign on the certificate. What happens thereafter is of less concern to them because there was no attachment between the couple and the witness in the first place,” Bakiika says.

He argues that the friends who often are people’s confidants should be the ideal choice to witness their colleagues’ marriages. “The process of choosing a spouse is one that we, Christians, do carefully and prayerfully. So when getting married I would want to pick one of my close friends with whom I have prayed, shared the frustrations and hope with, to be my best man, not anybody simply by virtue of their marital status,” he argues.

Rev Kamya however argues that it cannot be that a person has only one friend who is unmarried too. In any case, he adds there are still acceptable options as the Anglican Church allows inter denominational witnesses. What this means is for example, as long as one is a married Roman Catholic, he or she can witness to a marriage of an Anglican.

The ideal is for the married
In the Roman Catholic Church, Rev Fr James Ssebayigga, the Parish Priest of Holy Trinity Catholic Church Kamwokya says having a married person as witness is not a prerequisite but the ideal.

“The act of getting married is sacramental,” he says. “The best man or maid of honour is witness to this sacrament of Holy Matrimony. So, if you are non-recipient of this sacrament, what would you be witnessing to?” he asks. Ssebayigga says witnesses are supposed to be an example the couple ought to emulate, a role he says, married fellows can play well.

Friends are preferred
Because of such church regulations, some people have resorted to picking on married persons on their wedding day to sign their marriage certificates but retain their close friends as best man or maid of honour just like Darius Kato and Jerome Wasswa did in one Anglican church. “The fact that Jerome and I are twins, I thought would be enough reason for the church to grant my wish for my brother to be my best man,” says Kato. It never was. Kato proceeded with his wedding arrangements, got a married man on the wedding day to sign his marriage certificate as the church required but retained his unmarried twin brother as his best man. Luckily, the choice of maid of honour for his fiancée, her sister, was a married woman. So they had no trouble.

Reverend Kamya however describes this as “ceremonial”.
“It is he who signs on the certificate that is recognised by law as the witness,” he stresses. Jane Namaganda Kibira, a lawyer at Lumu, Matovu & Co Advocates agrees with Rev. Kamya. However, she points out that the law requires a witness who is not necessarily married but must be above 18 years of age.

Customary marriage
According to Isaac Ssembajja, Omwogezi w’okumikolo, master of ceremonies at introduction ceremonies in Buganda, in customary marriages, the parents of the boy and girl intending to get married are witnesses.
“The parents of the boy write to those of the girl expressing the intentions of their son to marry their daughter. After the girl’s parents have ascertained that there are no impediments such as both the boy and girl not coming from the same clan and therefore it is not incest, the parents consent to the marriage,” he says. Ssembajja adds that another consenting and witnessing party is the girl’s paternal aunt.

“She is the first witness because it is she who introduces the boy to the girl’s parents and then affirms to the boy’s parents that the girl has been allowed into their family.” Ssembajja notes that only the parents (mother and father), sign on the certificate. In case one of the parents is deceased, it is the heir or he who took over the deceased’s position that assumes the responsibility.

In traditional norms, Ssembajja explains that while one would choose a friend, a brother and sister were preferred for best man and matron respectively. “The brother would be escorting his brother to see where the bride-to-be was born, and for the girl’s side, it was the moment for her to see the family of the man taking her sister.”

Legally speaking…
“It is he who is sane, that can consent and witness rather than their marriage status that the law recognises,” says Kibira.
The Marriage Act 1904, Sections 24 and 27, recognises that a marriage must have at least two witnesses. It does not specify that such witnesses must be married individuals in the first place. Kibira adds, one’s marital status is not legally significant in witnessing a marriage saying that even on her wedding, their best man was unmarried. Jane and Peter Kibira were wedded in Makerere Full Gospel Church in 2012.

David Kamugisha, the church’s administrator says in Full Gospel Church and largely in the Pentecostal Church, it is not a prerequisite for one to be married to qualify as a marriage witness.

“If the reason is that a married person will give counsel and help the couple through challenges in their marriage then, in the Pentecostal Church we encourage couples to see counsellors or talk to the pastors,” he says.
Kibira says for some churches to require marriage witnesses to be married individuals is one of the customs that religious denominations set to be observed simply for the good of their congregations.

So as it appears, when choosing your best man or maid of honour, depending on the church or tradition you go to, the choice might be in your hands to pick on your friend or that married person.

THE MARRIAGE ACT 1904
Section 24: Entries to be made in marriage certificate
“Immediately after the celebration of any marriage by a minister, the officiating minister shall fill out in duplicate a marriage certificate with the particulars required by Form E, and state also and enter in the counterfoil the number of the certificate, the date of the marriage, names of the parties and the names of the witnesses.”

Section 27: Marriage certificate to be signed
“The registrar shall then fill out, and he or she and the parties and witnesses shall sign, the certificate of the marriage in duplicate, and the registrar shall then fill out and sign the counterfoil as prescribed in section 24 in the case of a marriage by a minister, and

Who would you choose to witness your marriage?
"I would choose my best friend to be my maid of honour because in most cases, our friends understand us. We are more expressive with our friends than anyone else. "
Rehemah Nabakooza, Cashier

"I would choose my friend and someone with the same physique as mine. I would choose him on the basis that I know his character and is not just to pose as the best man. He would also have to be a friend to my fiancée; he is of the same religion with me and can create union."
Peter Katwesigye, Lecturer

“I would of course choose my friend but one that is married. As a married woman, this friend would help me with shopping and preparing for the wedding. She would also advise me more than an unmarried friend."
Kaitesi Odetha, Waitress