WHY DIVORCE WAS VERY RARE IN AFRICAN TRADITIONAL SOCIETY

In African traditional society, divorce was not common because of the following factors;

They believed that marriage was blessed by God and therefore it could not just be terminated (dissolved).
It was unusual to find divorce cases In African traditional societyMarriage. This was because marriage was seen as an affair not only between two groups of people, it involved the whole clan and family heads from both the man and woman’s side who guided their children before and during marriage.
The process of organizing marriage ceremony played a big role in reducing divorce cases. This was because it took more time involving the experiences of parents in giving sex education.
The background of both partners would clearly be studied to understand each other’s behaviours. Even special prayers should be organized to have a stable marriage.
The bride price that could be paid by the man to the girl’s side could also block him or her on divorce. For example a man paid a cock which signified a life time union between the man and woman’s family and if the cock has been eaten up by the girl’s family then divorce couldn’t occur.

The marriage In African traditional society aimed at stability and production of children. Therefore it would be so hard for the partners to separate from one another especially if they had produced some children like Ssempijja and Kiggundu.
There was a serious courtship process of with the parents of the would – be parents of the partners could discover the problems between the man and woman and was solved before marriage took place.
In case a problem occurred between the couple it would be easily solved before divorce took place. In this case the woman would run to her aunt who connected to the man while the man would run to his uncle to seek for advice and usually a solution would be got.
In African traditional society if the husband was caught guilty of mistreating the wife like beating her up every time he is drunkard, a serious warning was put towards him by the elders and he took it too. This could also prevent a woman from divorcing the husband.

The Africans practiced the payment of dowry and bride price. This solved much the tendencies of divorce because the woman always thought of her family returning bride price to the man’s family.

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