Woman to woman marriage and cognates in Nigerian law: an easy coalition between customary law and human rights

Abstract

This article argues that when conceived as an adoption mechanism rather than a marriage simpliciter, the woman to woman marriage common in parts of Nigeria becomes juridically explicable, and with it, several other cognate customary law arrangements which have proved challenging to scholars and adjudicators historically as well as in recent appellate court jurisprudence. Thus reconceived, the woman to woman marriage and its cognates assail the negative appellate court jurisprudence thereon and their ramifications become amenable to exposition in ways that evince the genius of the arrangement and its designers’ ingenuity.