Let’s discourage, not legalise cohabiting

Another scenario likely to arise is cross-generational marriages. Since wealth/income increases with age, the young will cohabit with the old targeting a share of their wealth.

Last week, there were several media reports about protagonists seeking for a separate law on cohabitation permitting its recognition as a marriage after 10 years.
Their argument is that men are reluctant or not willing to enter into lawful marriage. Usually, what makes a well-able man to shy away from his in-laws, is the conduct of his spouse towards him and or his relatives.

Unless women are willing redress this, no amount of legislation will restrain men from doing otherwise. Their demand arouses many questions and anomalies:-
Have the ladies in question or their colleagues scaled the climax of their careers without getting suitable spouses and are now in dire need of off-setting this reproach or bearing children? This could pose a great danger to youths especially students likely to be unknowingly ensnared/coerced into marriage via the channel of cohabitation. What parameters of age or marital status should determine those eligible for cohabitation?

Unscrupulous married men/women could keep fleeing from one spouse to another so as to settle in search for a ‘stress free’ marriage with new spouses. The under aged could pair-up and fall prey to this practice, with the hope of maturing and ending in marriage thus driving defilement rates to unprecedented proportions.

Another scenario likely to arise is cross-generational marriages. Since wealth/income increases with age, the young will cohabit with the old targeting a share of their wealth.
Cohabiting does not put into account the women who are not able to maintain their families single- -handedly. After bearing children, she will bear the brunt of their upbringing alone if the man flees before the 10 years elapse.

Cohabiting can breed and increase incidences of abominable practices like incestuous marriages since couples will wait for long before declaring who their intended spouses are. They could exploit the option of being forcefully declared married after the given number of years. Societal disorders like same sex marriages are likely to increase.

It undermines the authority, operations and scope of religious institutions which are key stakeholders in ensuring that citizens fulfill their moral and family obligations and keep the law. Cohabiting couples will claim to be law-abiding and assuage their guilty conscience by invoking the law!

In conclusion, the HIV/Aids plague is lurking in our midst. The progress made in the fight against this epidemic could drastically be retarded by enactment of thoughtless laws. Couples who are usually required to go for blood test before entering marital union will take the easy path of cohabitation which commences as a secret affair and ignores such norms.

This irresponsible practice could easily drag the country into the abyss of shame and utter destruction. It should be discouraged and couples must be obliged to lawfully marry before they live together.

Charles Okecha,
carlsok2@yahoo.com