Anglicans warn against Marriage Bill provisions that threaten family, values

The Church of Uganda has raised a red flag on multiple provisions of the contentious Marriage Bill, 2024, saying some sections contravene faith, and cultural beliefs and could adversely damage the very fabric of marriage and family. 

Among the clauses the Church wants streamlined is Section 39 of the Bill, which introduces the conversion of marriage from monogamous to potentially polygamous, Section 47, which introduces prenuptial and post-nuptial agreement, and section 74, which provides for the dissolution of marriages. 

While addressing the media on the sidelines of a consultative meeting between Church officials and a delegation from Parliament including the Bill’s sponsor, Ms Sarah Opendi, on December 4, the Provincial Secretary Rev Canon William Ongeng of the Church of Uganda, said some of the sections contradict the values and beliefs of the Christian faith. 

“Section 39 of the Bill introduces the conversion of marriages, which in effect provides for the possibility of a monogamous Christian marriage being converted to a polygamous marriage…This proposal of conversion of marriages would undermine the Christian value of the union of one man for one woman as instructed by Our Lord,” he said. 

Section three of the Bill lists six recognised marriages including the Bahá'í faith, Christian, Civil, Hindu, Customary and Islamic marriages. Of these, Hindu, Bahá'í faith and Christian are monogamous while the rest could potentially be polygamous. During the engagement, some members of the Church argue that the provision will give spouses a leeway to stray away. 

Mr Samuel Bakutana, the national president of Fathers’ Union, said: “There is this word called inclusion, to ensure all citizens of this country are included in the laws, which ideally makes a lot of sense. My challenge is while we are claiming to bring up inclusion in practice, we are promoting exclusion. Considering other people does not mean throwing away our biblical guidance, because that would be exclusion of the Christian faith while we are trying to say we are including other faith.”

He added: “Are we truly on an agenda of inclusion of all the citizens or we are on an agenda of insertion of things that will bring exclusion? You could put a proposal but when you leave it open, this is so bad and potentially dangerous to the institution of the family. It is suicidal. This provision should be removed from the Bill. You look for what we are trying to cure and we do not have a strong case.”

Rev Barbra Mugisha, the provincial mothers’ union and family life ministry coordinator, agreed with Rev Bakutana.

Mr Susan Katono, the director for legislation at Parliament, told the unyielding members that the provision is meant to cater to, for instance, Christians who may change religion but want to remain married to their current spouse, but also to include traditional practices where in the event of medical concerns or incapacity, another individual is introduced as another spouse. The provision also provides that this can only be done upon agreement by both parties in the subsisting marriage. 

Divorce

The Church is also opposed to the open provision on the dissolution of marriages. 

Can Ongeng said: “Section 74 of the Bill introduces the sole ground for the dissolution of marriages as irretrievable breakdown of marriage, which ground is not explained to highlight the scope of what qualifies to lead to an irretrievable breakdown. The Church of Uganda is concerned that this section together with section 73 providing for the dissolution of marriage by mutual consent will make divorce more rampant and hence viewed as facilitating divorce.” 

Divorce under the Church is only provided for under very stringent conditions like adultery. 

The meeting that was held at the provincial offices in Kampala also proposed the addition of the word “biological” to the definition of marriage to address the trend of transgender. The definition of marriage, they said should be between a biological man and a biological woman.

These and other views of the Church will be presented before the joint parliamentary committee of Legal and Parliamentary Affairs and Gender, which is scrutinising the bill. Another area of contention for the Church is the provision that the minister may recognise any other type of marriage by an instrument, with the meeting agreeing that this leaves the law open to manipulation.

The Bill was tabled on October 3, and has since sparked debate over its impact on morals, religion and culture, among other aspects of society.

Ms Opendi said the provisions in the Bill were informed by among others, court judgements, the prevailing common practice, lessons from other countries as well as opinions from different stakeholders- and this seeks to legislate for all Ugandans. 

“Let us also be mindful of the fact that we have different stakeholders in this. We have the cultural leaders. That's where customary marriages fall. We have the Christians. That's where the Christian marriage falls. We have the Mohammedans. That is where the Islamic marriages fall because, for them, they are okay with polygamy. So we have the Bahá'í and the Hindu marriages. So all these, as we deliberate, have to be taken care of separately,” she said.