Nigeria is a heterogeneous society and the heterogeneity reflects in virtually all the social legal institutions in the country including marriage contracts. The Nigerian law recognises three systems of marriage, which are the customary law marriage, Islamic law marriage and statutory marriage. Each marriage is governed by distinct rules derived from their substantive laws. But a new form of marriage contract has evolved in the country – the multi-tiered marriage contract. This form of marriage is believed to have problems in the operation of family law in the country. The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of multi-tiered marriage; investigate the causes of this type of marriage and highlight its effects on the Nigerian family law. The research employs the use of data from unstructured interviews and legal doctrinal content analysis. The paper uses purposive sampling method to determine the research sample. The research population includes married couples who contracted the multi-tiered marriage. It is found that globalisation has contributed reasonably to the increase in the practice of multi-tiered marriage in the contemporary Nigerian society. The paper finds that there are both legal and social reasons for celebrating the multi-tiered marriage contract in Nigeria.

1. A STUDY OF THE
PRACTICE OF MULTI-
TIERED MARRIAGE
PRACTICE IN NIGERIAN
FAMILY LAW
Imam-Tamim, M. Kamaldeen
Najibah Mohd Zin
Norliah Ibrahim
Roslina Che Soh @ Yusoff
Presented at the 2015 International
Conference on Law & Society
(ICLAS IV) held at Universiti Sultan
Zainal Abidin (UniSZA), Terengganu,
Malaysia on 10th June 2015.

2. OUTLINE
 Introduction
 Multi-tiered marriage in Nigeria
 Causes of Multi-tiered marriage in Nigeria
 Effects of the practice of multi-tiered marriage on
family law and procedure in Nigeria
 Conclusion

3. Introduction
 There are officially three types of marriage in Nigeria –
customary, Islamic and statutory marriages.
 A fourth type of marriage has evolved - multi-tiered marriage.
 The celebration of multi-tiered marriage contract is rampant in
Nigeria even though it has no official legal backing.
 A 2003 survey showed that out of 430 married persons
investigated, 210 celebrated multi-tiered marriage contracts.
This gives 48% of the population.
 Similarly, out of the 20 respondents for this study, 11
contracted multi-tiered marriages. This gives 55%.
 This shows that this type of marriage is still highly rampant.
 The practice of contracting a multi-tiered marriage has
created legal problems in the operation of family law in the
country.

4. Multi-tiered marriage in Nigeria
 A type of marriage that involves same
couple who celebrate a marriage
under one system of law and then
celebrate a subsequent marriage
under another system” by performing
the respective legal essentials to each
type of the marriages celebrated.
 This kind of marriage entails intersection
of different systems of marriage laws in
marriage and divorce situations.
 Arises mostly in family law systems that
have more than one family law
systems whereby “jurisdiction over
marriage and divorce matters is shared
between different authorities.

5. Causes of Multi-tiered marriage in
Nigeria

6. EFFECTS OF THE PRACTICE OF MULTI-TIERED MARRIAGE ON FAMILY
LAW AND PROCEDURE IN NIGERIA
 Where a person contracts his marriage under a
certain system of law, his family and personal law
affairs during and after the marriage will be
presumed by law to be regulated by the rules
applicable under that system of law under which he
contracted the marriage.
 From this background, if parties contract marriage
under more than one system of law, they are bound
by the respective systems of law under which their
marriage was celebrated.
 Thus, plural systems of marriage laws apply to the
parties.

7. EFFECTS OF THE PRACTICE OF MULTI-TIERED
MARRIAGE, cont’d…

8. Conclusion
 The major finding in this study is that the celebration
of multi-tiered marriage contract could constitute
various adverse legal implications.
 There is need for the reform of the Nigerian family
law.
 The reform should follow multi-track and must be
approached pragmatically in order to be effective.
 The reform commission must embark on an
empirical study of the society to evolve an
acceptable uniform reform that will be acceptable
to the people who are highly heterogenic and
multi-cultural.

9. Questions and comments
are welcome