29 year old Perpetual Ezenwa, has asked the customary court in Igando Lagos State to dissolve her four months old marriage to Charles Ezenwa, claiming the man started beating her less than 4 days after paying her dowry. Perpetual said she married Charles after dating him for less than 2 months and now seeks divorce over what the she tagged domestic violence.
She said, "we married after courting for less than 2 months. Before I married him, I've started noticing his behaviors but when I told my father he said I should not leave him that he would change after our marriage.
"I believed he said that because they are from the same village in Imo and being the first daughter of my parents, they want me to marry on time. But, he kept becoming worse and I've decided to leave after 4 months of our marriage. 4 days after the payment of my dowry and our traditional marriage, he started beating me on flimsy excuses. He beats me with turning sticks in one of those days all because I received a text message from a friend and the message only reads "good day madam, how's your weekend ". This was what Charles saw that day and he nearly killed me. Come to think of it, this same man that was beating me is having an affairs with a fiancée of one of our neighbors. He did was caught on one of those days and I got to know about it. I told my father of all the happenstance but he would only say I should endure it. When I couldn't bear it again, I've moved to my parent's house and I've asked Charles to come and get his dowry back according to our tradition so that I can marry another man but, he has refused to collect it saying he would allow me to suffer because he knew I can't marry another man unless he collect the dowry and that I would grow old in my father's house."She now wants the court to force him to collect back his dowry. Charles was not in court to say his side of the story, so the Court's president, Adegboyega Omilola who sat over the case sent a court order to him and the case was adjourned till February 8, 2016.
