Equal Rights of the Customary Marriage Law of 1998.

This Law aims to govern the evolution of estates and establishes rights of inheritance for spouses of both statutory and customary marriages. In particular, it states that rights, duties and liabilities of the statutory wife shall likewise be accorded to all customary wives, consistent with and pursuant to the provisions contained in the Act Adopting a New Domestic Relations Law, known as Title 9 of the Liberian Code of Laws Revised, 1973, and which is hereby fully incorporated. The recovery of dowry (token) from the wife or her parents by the husband is hereby prohibited. Any husband who collects or attempts to collect dowry from his wife or her parent by use of force, directly or indirectly, has committed a felony of the first degree, and upon conviction in a court of competent jurisdiction, shall be fined. Immediately upon marriage, the customary wife shall be entitled to one-third of her husband’s property personal or real and vice versa regardless of whether or not he/she helped him/her to acquire said property. It shall be the responsibility of customary spouses to work in partnership and adequately maintain and support their household, according to their financial or physical means.
Every customary husband shall respect his wife’s Human Rights; any violation of this Section shall entitle the wife to seek redress in a court of law. The property acquired or owned by a customary woman, either before or during marriage, belongs to her exclusive of her husband and she is therefore free to do any lawful business in her own name, including the right to contract with third parties but to the full knowledge and consent of her husband.