A social media post featuring an Accra High Court judge went viral. The News declared in bold letters: “MARRIAGE IS NOT INVESTMENT” and “WOMEN ARE NOT SLAVES, BABY MAKING MACHINE AND DISPOSAL ASSETS AFTER YOU USE AND ABUSE THEM!” Below it, advice followed: “LADIES BE SMART… DON’T GO 50 & DON’T PUT YOUR OWN MONEY IN A MAN FUTURE! TAKE WHAT YOU CAN AND WALK AWAY AT THE RIGHT TIME!”
Whether the image was commentary, satire, or protest, it tapped into a real and growing frustration: that Ghana’s courts have, at times, handed down rulings that leave women feeling unseen, unprotected, or outright judged on the wrong metrics.
### When Personal Comments Enter Legal Judgments
One recurring complaint from lawyers and women’s rights groups is the appearance of irrelevant personal remarks in matrimonial cases. In one dissolution of marriage ruling that circulated this year, the court reportedly noted that the woman was “physically very much attractive and capable of remarrying anytime she felt like.”
The backlash was swift. Legal scholars asked the obvious question: What does a woman’s looks or remarriage prospects have to do with dividing property, granting custody, or determining spousal support?
Critics argue that such language reflects lingering patriarchal attitudes that weigh a woman’s value by her desirability, not her legal rights. It also undermines Article 17 of Ghana’s 1992 Constitution, which guarantees equality and freedom from discrimination on the basis of gender.
### The “Marriage Is Not Investment” Debate
The phrase “marriage is not investment” has become shorthand for a deeper legal tension. Under Ghana’s Matrimonial Causes Act and the 1992 Constitution, there’s a presumption of equitable distribution of property acquired during marriage. Yet in practice, some rulings have dismissed a wife’s non-financial contributions — child-rearing, homemaking, emotional labor — as not being “investment” worthy of equal division.
“Women walk away from 20-year marriages with nothing because the judge decides her cooking and childcare weren’t ‘financial contributions’,” says Accra-based family lawyer Efua Mensah. “Meanwhile, she sacrificed career growth. That’s the investment.”
Several high-profile cases in the last five years have seen women denied shares in marital property because they could not produce receipts or bank transfers proving contribution. The message, advocates say, is chilling: Don’t put your money in a man’s future, because the court may not protect you if things fall apart.
### Three Patterns That Keep Showing Up
1. Morality as evidence: Rulings that reference a woman’s lifestyle, clothing, or social life when deciding custody or maintenance, even when irrelevant to the legal test of “best interest of the child.”
2. Minimizing economic abuse: Dismissing claims of financial control because the woman “didn’t have to stay” or “is educated enough to leave,” ignoring how economic abuse traps victims.
3. Unequal application of fault: In adultery cases, women face harsher social and legal consequences, including reduced property awards, while men’s infidelity is treated as less consequential.
### The Cost of Bad Precedent
Every ruling that leans on stereotype instead of statute sets precedent. Junior judges cite it. Lawyers use it to advise clients. Women internalize it. The viral graphic’s blunt line — “Take what you can and walk away at the right time” — isn’t legal advice. It’s survival advice born from distrust in the system.
That distrust has real outcomes. The Ark Foundation and FIDA-Ghana report that many women now avoid court entirely, opting for informal settlements that often shortchange them further. Others stay in harmful marriages longer, fearing a court process that might humiliate them or leave them empty-handed.
### Where Reform Is Happening
It’s not all bleak. The Judicial Training Institute has expanded gender and social context training since 2023. The Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in _Mensah v. Mensah_ reaffirmed that non-monetary contribution to marital property must be weighed equally. And more women judges are rising through the ranks — currently 38% of the High Court bench, per Judicial Service data.
Activists say the next steps are clear:
– Published guidelines: on property division that explicitly value unpaid care work.
– Judgment review panels: to flag biased language before rulings are finalized.
– Stronger appeals access: for women who can’t afford to challenge bad rulings.
### Bottom Line
A court’s job is to apply law to facts. Not to comment on a woman’s attractiveness. Not to decide if she can remarry. And not to treat marriage as a financial transaction where only cash receipts count.
The viral post that sparked this conversation ended with, “Do what’s best for you.” For too many Ghanaian women, that still means avoiding court altogether. Changing that will take more than memes. It will take judgments that respect the law — and the women standing before it.