Right to marry and the revisionists’ advocacy: A fundamental jurisprudential Re-reading

Abstract

Marriage is a natural and social institution which is recognized and respected world over. Precisely as an institution of nature, the natural law has for all times  prescribed the conditions necessary for valid celebration of marriage namely:  voluntariety, heterosexuality, monogamity, indissolubility and exclusivity. But under the intuition of modern ideologies definitions and approaches to marriage which contradict and so fly in the face of the natural law abound with great patronage.  Among the reasons offered for this departure from the natural law marriage type is the claim that marriage should be predicated upon absolute right to privacy,  freedom of association and freedom from discrimination as enshrined in the  frameworks of various international and municipal laws. This work operates as a counterpoint to the above claim through a hermeneutical analysis of the essence  and the limits of the claimed rights. It calls attention to the inexorable need to  anchor marriage on the law of laws – natural moral law. The work finds that the  advocates of marriage revision has failed to understand the nature of man, society, marriage and indeed rights and freedom. Hence a fundamental clarification of the proper meaning of these terms through legal awareness programme is highly  recommended.

Key words: Right to Marry, Fundamental Rights, Freedom, Privacy, Association and Discrimination