The National Assembly yesterday approved and passed the marriage Bill after amendments made to the proposed law by Senate last month.
The proposed amendments by Senate last month were approved and the Bill had to be returned to the National Assembly for assessment before President Emmerson Mnangagwa finalised the Bill to be passed.
In 2020 the Bill was held up in Senate after traditional leaders and the government were not agreeing on the issue of bride price, government had decreed the payment of bride price is not relevant to joining people in marriage.
The traditional leaders disagreed to the government view as the Chiefs Council led by Fortune Charumbira maintained that bride price is the pride of Zimbabwean culture and should not be outcasted.
The amended marriage Bill recognises unions of couples who are cohabitating without getting married officially.
The new amendments allow marriage officers, including traditional leaders to formalise customary unions in their own areas to ask parties to a marriage whether or not lobola has been paid.
The amendments also provide that a marriage officer in a customary union cannot acknowledge unions where couples had stayed together for less than five years.
According to the new marriage Bill, the unregistered customary unions have to present an affidavit jointly sworn to by them to the effect that they have been living together as husband and wife for at least five years or more, and that they are not related to each other within any prohibited degree of kinship that is recognised by their community as an impediment to marriage between them.
There also have to be affidavits by two witnesses of whom one witness must be a relative of the bridegroom and the other a relative of the bride attesting if the proposed marriage partners have been living together as man and wife for five years or more and that they are not related to each other within the prescribed degree of kinship.
The period of five years referred to in this section shall not include any period during which either of the parties was below the age of eighteen years.