Title :Bigamous marriage in Amhara regional state Family code and its

practical gap in worebabo woreda,South wollo zone.

➢JEMAL SEID OUMER........... UGR/1325/14

Acknowledgement

First of all ,I would like to tanks Almighty for providing us the strength ,patience,and blessing
from the beginning to the end of the study. Next, I would like to express our gratitude to our
legal research instructor, Getahun Alemayehu(Dr. )lecturer at Addis Ababa University School
of law and Head of the Office of the President of the Federal Supreme Court, who helped us
with ideas and advice to do this research.In addition, my respect and appreciation for mine
parents who work day and night for their children is great.Finally, I deserves alot of thanks for
all the members bookstore of the Law Library of Addis Ababa University for their sincere
cooperation and support .

Abstract

Even if bigamous marriage clearly prohibited by Revised family code of Ethiopia in Art 11 and
in different laws of federal and regional legal jurisdictions. However,the practice of bigamy so
far continued without take into consideration of both federal and regional laws those
formulated to conduct family matters.

Nonetheless, different groups argued by arising different reasons to protect the existence of
bigamy in Ethiopia, but it's disparity with national and international laws led to prohibit it.
Despite , the text of different religious books(Holy Quran and Hadith) hold a provisions that
permit the existence and consolidation of bigamy, it criticized by different Muslim scholars as
unexamined, crude and as remedy to equalize the numerical disparity between male and
female around 632 A.H,since in that time many male communities of Arab was face severe
humanitarian damage in holy war (Jihad ).

Finally, this study endeavor to create awareness to south wollo zone in general and
worebabo Wereda in particular those most of the communities are the followers of Islamic
religion, since the root of bigamy emanated from this religion.

1. Introduction

Different scholars give meaning to the term bigamy In their literatures.It refers to" the act of
marring person while the previous marriage doesn't dissolved either by divorce or
death.1Bigamy is concluding another marriage while bound by a previous marriage. 2 For
example, if “A” and “B” are husband and wife respectively, “A” cannot marry “C” before
dissolving his marriage with “B”. Bigamy is not only prohibited under the RFC (Art. 11), but
also it is crime under the Penal Code. (Art. 616).3Not only the federal Revised Family Code's
provision that stated about the prohibition of bigamy but also Art 44 sub article 1 of Amhara
national regional Family Code also entitled about the issue of invalidation of bigamy by an
interested person.So, this study try to access the case of Worebabo Woreda in South Wollo
Zone, Amhara region.

2. Statement of the problem

Almost the considerable number of bigamous marriage occurred in the rural parts of
Ethiopia4 in general and the lowland parts of Amhara region South Wollo Zone areas with
Muslim communities in particular. Now let us, access the issue of Women's right violation
due to their spouse enter into bigamous marriage. Firstly, when a man concluded a new
marriage side by side the previous marriage, in this situation he violate the right to equality
of his former spouse because the newly concluded marriage depend on the common

1
Black’s Law Dictionary (8th ed. 2004).

2
Dr.Mellese Damtie,Family law teaching material AAU p;3.

3
Ibid.

4
Journal of Oromia law ( Vol 3, No;1)p ;83.
property of both the previous spouse's and husband the so called. 5 Secondly, the practice of
bigamy led to women's discrimination since the act of a man who entered in to bigamous
marriage considered as men's superiority and women's inferiority. 6 Finally, the problem
arises during the division of common property when one of the spouse come up with the idea
of divorce and during the distribution of pension allowance between co -wives when their
husband died. 7

3. Legal aspect of bigamous marriage

The issue of bigamous marriage contravene with the provision of international treaties such
as with ICCPR, CEDAW,HRC etc.Since,Ethiopia adopted the above listed treaties it bounded to
follow up those implementation and also such ratified treaties has a greater status in the
constitution.8

4.Bigamy and the FDRE Constitution

The FDRE Constitution stipulates that “family is the natural and fundamental unit of society
and is entitled to protection by society and the State.”9Accordingly, every men and
women has the right to marry and found a family. 10 It is also provided that marriage shall be
entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses – man and
woman.11Furthermore, it also provides for the equal rights of man and woman while entering
into, during marriage and at the time of divorce. 12Finally, even if the constitution remains

5
The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopian Constitution (1995) Proclamation
No.1/1995,Fed,Neg,Gaz,Year 1No;1,Art;34(3).

6
Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, Article 5( a).
7
Aminat Ali vs Fatuma Wubet, Federal Supreme Court, Civ Cassation No 45548, Published Federal Court
Cassation Decisions, Vol;13.

8
FDRE Constitution, Art;13(2).

9
FDRE Constitution, Art;34(3).

10
FDRE Constitution, Art;34(2).

11
FDRE Constitution, Art;34(1).

12
FDRE Constitution, Art;34(1).
silent about bigamy but the generality character of the constitution gives a clue that a detail
left to other laws.

5.According to the FDRE Criminal Code, bigamy is generally casted as an offence punishable
by the law. It reads as follows:
Whoever, being tied by the bond of a valid marriage, intentionally contracts another
marriage before the first union has been dissolved or annulled, is punishable with simple
imprisonment, or,in grave cases, and especially where the criminal has knowingly misled his
partner in the second union as to his true state, with rigorous imprisonment not exceeding
five years.13
6.Bigamy in Revised family code and Amhara national regional Family code

According to,the wording of Revised family code of federal government the act of bigamy
clearly forbidden to concluded as stipulated that "a person shall not conclude marriage as
long as he is bound by bonds of a preceding marriage " 14Furthermore, the wording of Amhara
national regional state family code in its provision stated that "the dissolution of a bigamous
marriage shall be ordered on the application of either of the spouses of the bigamous
marriage or the public prosecutor. 15
7.The reason behind bigamy and the case of Worebabo Woreda

As usual,peoples give different justification for their fault of bigamy. Some argue that bigamy
is an important one to produce more children in order to increase agricultural productivity by
investing huge amount of manpower those obtained from bigamous marriage. The other
argue that bigamy has Paramount significance in decreasing the working load of single wife's
in case of "Deboo".when the husband call his friends in order to assist him by performing his
agricultural activities by coming together. So,in that time the wife's became busy by food
preparation "Agmas"the so called.The last justification widely used by the local communities

13
The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia Criminal Code (2004), Art;650(1) [hereinafter the Criminal Code].

14
RFC,Art;11.

15
Amhara national regional state family code,Art.44(1).
of Worebabo is considering bigamy as one type of criteria to evaluate the richness and
poorness of someone else. And they argued that merely it permitted by sharia law.

8.Conclusion

To sum up the above gist of ideas. Bigamy is prohibited by both national and international
laws by different reasons. Firstly, in order to mitgate women's discrimination and inferiority,
which created by the occurrence of bigamous marriage. Secondly, the provision of sharia law
that permit bigamy lack neatness due to different drawbacks and it considered as the remedy
for the numerical imbalance of men and women in the time of holy war (Jihad ) plus to that
some Muslim scholars argued that "the Qur'an put a strict requirements ". 16If someone
wanted to engaged in bigamy he must be fulfilled the preconditions that ordered by the
intent of the Holy Qur'an and Hadith. Among those requirements economic capacity and the
well being of giving equal affection to the co -wives are the most important ones. 17 Then they
argued that "the nature of man doesn't permit to give equal affection to different people
their is variation. Finally,they give a conclusion the sharia law prohibit bigamy by default
since one of the requirement never fulfilled by anyone else. 18

9. Recommendation

The study endeavor to give different suggestion. Firstly, the office of Worebabo Woreda
women's affair must spend its manpower to the issue of awareness creation that addressed
the community of Worebabo in general and women's in particular,since the communities
presumed bigamy as a right and thy didn't aware what the law says about it.Not only lack of
awareness but also some men's ignore it even if they had enough information. Secondly, this
study try to remind the public prosecutor to come up with the idea of application to
invalidate such kind of marriage. Thirdly, the study invite different feminist group and human
right activist to defend women's right that face a severe denial by bigamous marriage. Finally,

16
Dr Mehari Redaie , The content and enforcement of RFC;p 35.

17
Ibid.

18
Ibid.
it try to recommend the sharia court of Worebabo Woreda to fight against bigamy if it's
possible to eliminate it from the intent of sharia law.