JUDGMENT
PROF. MENSA-BONSU, JSC
The events that have given birth to this case evoke the wise observation of the Scottish poet Sir Walter Scott,
“Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practice to deceive.”
This case involves a dispute about the ownership of landed property between a husband and wife and the social fallouts from the economic difficulties that have afflicted the nation over the past forty odd years, leading couples to adopt all manner of strategies, including ‘distance marriages’ to secure their economic well-being and the survival of their families. The cultural assumptions underlying notions of marriage in Ghana, in which a woman is dependent upon her husband, and the husband is the one who has the means to acquire landed property which may be held solely in his name, have come under some strain. In consequence of such assumptions, ownership of, and title to landed property held in the wife’s name is seen as a deviation from the normal, and often int…