This page is destined to provide resources concerning the legal status of bridewealth within a particular region. The payment of bridewealth is a customary practice necessary in many communities to officialize an union. Legal systems in countries where bridewealth is practiced however regard and respond to this marital practice in a variety of ways. Customary marriages where bridewealth is paid, and their regulations, may, in some countries, be recognized and enshrined in law. Without considering marriages with bridewealth payment as legal, other systems may take into account the payment of bridewealth in their interventions and judgments concerning important questions such as divorce, child custody, spousal abuse, etc. Still others legal systems may consider marriages by bridewealth payment and its implications as contrary to religion or to contemporary state of law. This page is designed to provide resources on this important question of the articulation of customary marriage law and state law and of its implications.

LEGISLATION

-Islanders Marriage Act 
http://www.paclii.org/cgi-bin/sinodisp/sb/legis/consol_act/ima177/ima177.html?stem=&synonyms=&query=islanders%252520marriage%252520act

-Family Protection Act 2014 
http://www.ilo.org/dyn/natlex/natlex4.detail?p_lang=en&p_isn=98705&p_count=96182&p_classification=01&p_classcount=12516