DIVORCE AND MAINTENANCE UNDER ISLAMIC MARRIAGES IN NIGERIA: THE NEED TO SAFEGUARD THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN

Abstract

Divorce is severing the legal bond between a husband and wife and this can occur regardless of the kind of marriage the parties undertake. Under Islamic marriage a man may divorce his wife of fifty years or more by merely pronouncing the Talaq. A wife does not enjoy a concomitant right although under some circumstances she may validly divorce her husband by other more stringent means. What makes the plight of a divorced woman bad is the fact that she is not entitled to maintenance upon divorce of her husband unless she is pregnant for him or just put to bed. The children of an Islamic marriage are in a better place than their mothers as they are entitled to be taken care of until the boy hits puberty and the girl marries. The law does not provide any succour to the Islamic wife when there is a divorce therefore this work aims at elevating the wife of an Islamic marriage to the same pedestal as those of a woman married under the Act. The doctrinal methodology was adopted in the research.