As the world is becoming closer technologically and socially, coupled with the rapid influx of foreign cultures and so many others, our society is also dancing in the same tone in forging uniform existence with outside forces, our laws and cultures are becoming more and more obsolete not gradually but rapidly.
This factual dynamism is being catalyzed by technological advancement and inevitable situational changes like the wars plus other related factors which ought legal adjustment.
As a society governed by customary laws for centuries and still holding on with deep belief in the same statutory, we are obliged to make a turn within a legal orbit in order to comply with the global direction.
The world around us of course doesn’t have legal jurisdiction to urge us to revisit our norms and ethos in favor of either Western or Eastern world interests but we as people whose economic might is partially independently numbed, our ancient laws are deemed shortage of standard.
It is a known fact that Southerners have scattered almost in all countries around the world and come back with motives of doing the undone in societies while how they do it almost contravenes with laws of the land. In the earlier 1970s, three greater regions of Bahr el Ghazal, Upper Nile, and Equatoria had assembled in three different places to enact laws governing marriage among those communities whose cattle are paid as dowry.
In Bahr el Ghazal, WethAlel was the assembling point whereas, in Greater Upper Nile, they converged in Fangak. Laws were enacted and promulgated in accordance with various cultures and customs in those places.
In the case of cattle keepers, cattle were considered as bride prices and also became useful in areas of blood compensation. For a young man in those communities to take somebody's daughter, you pay cows to buy that pretty human being whose ownership is vested upon you the buyer after the required number is met upon agreement by the two families.
A certain figure of cows was agreed upon in the case of adultery while pregnancy and child/ren born outside wedlock and brought up in their maternal families had an upper column in those unwritten or oral laws. For the case of Dinka in Upper Nile, six cows were agreed as equivalents of confirmed adultery while that of a lady was two cows and a bull.
With these rare and unique laws, societal rights were more valued than individuals' rights within those societies hence, human rights were never a known vocabulary, and women as mere assets subject to men's laws. Women's rights were almost next to a taboo if not sinister to society’s progress to the extent that a mature girl or even an underage girl can find herself flat on a men’s bed without knowing where these arrangements were attended to.
Regardless of age so long the person in the description is a lady, of course, there is no unisex marriage, she is to adhere to elders’ demands after all the bridegroom is considered to be from a high family. Not even my mother can dare tell me that she made her mind independently.
Women lawyers of the time read different legal books otherwise; they won’t have accepted such laws to be passed in the elders’ assembly because women were so much victimized.
Things like forced marriage were nothing but part of obedience that parents impose on their daughters to accept men of choice to parents. Children considered central to conflicts had no right also. A child is surrendered to a regrettable decision without being asked or given time to be able to think independently of his/her family of choice in the future.
With these laws also there were no definite avenues where defaulters could be punished or held accountable for their crimes especially those from well-off families whose parents at zero hours are able to raise blood prices or compensation without difficulties.
To them, murder is just a murder without being analyzed why it happened and in such a situation, blood compensation for resumption of normalcy was ultimate. People kill when they are able to compensate the aggrieved and bereaved families.
Despite legal hurdles surrounding these undocumented laws, merits and demerits are only visible to those with a background in in-laws themselves or a person liberal enough to comprehend legal logic besides being a fan of the western lifestyle.
Of course, it was only in the American constitution that the first bill of rights was introduced and this made it so far the best human-made constitution.
Bible and holy Quran don’t have verses that talk clearly on individuals’ rights other than t don’ts which almost formed the whole pagination however, adultery and fornication are well spelled clearly as not individuals’ rights, something that is considered as almost a choice in statutory laws.
In Uganda and Kenya, it is less punishable because it is considered done within the context of choice. My wife can still love after all it is her will to disown me at any time she feels like it.
Back to the topic, our laws are totally obsolete because when we compare them with other world’s laws, they don’t have equivalent not because they are better but because they violate fundamental human rights and there is nowhere such law can exist in this global village called earth. For example, women who conditionally parted with their couples during the war and made new settlements after their first husbands today are still being asked to go back to those men they left decades back because those had then paid prices yet they have lived a new life completely.
Grown-up children fathered by different fathers are also compelled to go to men who had married their mothers before despite the fact that these men have no birthright ownership of these children but because their adopted father had paid for their mother the other time.
Refugee families who had resettled overseas got it rough to quell their wives who had anciently lived in the world of denial for a long time thus, divorce became the order of the day because after these women became known for women's rights, kicking started in their houses.
A number of single mothers is on the rise in places like the US, Canada, and Australia after they became defiant of negative laws.
Ok, the only available merit of this law is how it keeps our culture intact while the world around us is losing their cultures rapidly, whereas ours is gradual though demerits still outweigh merits logically.
In demerits, high bride prices of cattle are one of the hidden reasons why our society isn’t able to make a full complete enjoyment of peace because able young men who had no formal education during twenty years of war with the north are busy with cattle rustling in different villages in the whole of Southern Sudan to raise the required numbers.
Here, our laws are part and parcel of the promotion of chaos than promoting peace in communities improvised by war.
Besides cattle rustling, urban migration is on the rise as more youth are becoming redundant in villages following a drastic reduction of the number of cattle due to adverse conditions known better to animal scientists in addition to fading of the art of traditional keeping of cattle.
As most youths aren’t able to raise a huge number of cattle as dowries, it provides room for cross-cultural intermarriages leaving a huge number of villages’ ladies roaming in between towns and rural areas to find men that are able to raise what is needed.
The then-protected adultery and fornication are becoming louder and louder as young men run away from taking care of ladies for fear of being asked to bring a huge herd of cattle while HIV/AIDS has never signed an agreement with laws. Let should lawmakers review our laws otherwise; they don’t have clauses that talk about the internet, video, audio, and condom usage.
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