By: Benedict AbuBakarr Conteh
The way Sierra Leone regulates marriage, divorce, and family property is set for a historic overhaul, as the Law Reform Commission, in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), convenes a series of consultative meetings on the review of the Matrimonial Causes Act, Cap 102. Amongst them is one hosted in Makeni on Saturday 20 September, 2025.
Passed in England in 1857 and adopted into Sierra Leonean law in 1950, the Act has remained virtually unchanged for 168 years. Many people say it no longer reflects the realities of modern marriages and, worse, places families especially children at the heart of emotional and social harm.
At the core of the review is Section 5 of the Act, which restricts divorce to only three grounds: adultery, cruelty, and desertion for three years. Proving these grounds is not only difficult but often humiliating for spouses and their children. As a result, many couples stay trapped in broken marriages, creating ripple effects on mental health, academic performance, and even drug use among children.
“The law, as it stands, forces families to wash their pain in public just to dissolve a marriage. It’s punitive, outdated, and unfair to children,” one legal analyst at the meeting explained.
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| Some of the participants during the consultative meeting |
The proposed reform introduces a more flexible and humane standard: irretrievable breakdown of marriage. This would allow couples to separate without lengthy court battles, relying instead on clear evidence such as prolonged separation, adultery, or behaviour that makes cohabitation intolerable.
The review also touches issues rarely addressed in public debate like property ownership and domestic contributions. Under current laws, property is often tied to the spouse with financial means, sidelining the unpaid labor of homemakers, often women.
The proposed changes would recognise domestic work, childcare, and companionship as valid contributions to matrimonial property. “For the first time, women who have held families together outside the formal economy will see their sacrifices legally valued,” one participant noted.
Prenuptial and postnuptial agreements long dismissed as foreign ideas are also set to gain legal recognition. These agreements would allow couples to decide in advance how property, maintenance, and childcare responsibilities would be shared in the event of separation.
Much of the discussion at the consultative meeting emphasised children. Broken marriages, when handled poorly, can spiral into neglect and trauma. The new framework seeks to safeguard children’s welfare by ensuring that both parents remain financially responsible, regardless of who wins custody.
Maintenance payments, previously tied almost exclusively to men, would now apply to either spouse depending on financial capacity. Support would extend until a child reaches 18 years of age.
Not all aspects of the Act are being rewritten. Long-standing restrictions such as prohibitions on marriages between close blood relatives remain intact. But reforms allow courts to exercise discretion in exceptional cases, such as marriages between step-relations.
At the same time, judicial separation where couples live apart without divorce remains an option for spouses who, for religious or personal reasons, cannot legally end their marriage.
The Commission stressed that the review is not an attack on marriage but a way to modernise Sierra Leone’s laws to reflect lived realities. While civil and Christian marriages fall under the review, customary and Islamic marriages are not included for now.
What does marriage mean in today’s society? How should the law balance tradition, fairness, and the wellbeing of children? And how can a law written in Victorian England serve a 21st-century African nation?
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