A Critical Apprisal Of Legitimacy And Legitimation Under Nigerian Family Law

2.8.0 OTHER INSTANCE OF LEGITIMACY
There are also other instances of a child being regarded as the legitimate child of a man who is not the natural father. For instance, a widow who remains in her late husband’s family house after the death of her husband, without re-marrying, without the marriage to her late husband being dissolved, any child she bears post-humously is regarded as the
legitimate child of her late husband at birth. In Nwaribe v. President Oru district Court and Anor49 the above custom was judicially approved as not being contrary to natural justice equity and good conscience, in that case, the husband of Oyibo died and she continued to live in the matrimonial home, in the family house of the deceased, she became pregnant by the applicant, Nwaribe, while still living there, but before delivery she left to stay with her people, subsequently, she took action in the customary court for a formal divorce, The court held that her marriage to the deceased Obiora was not dissolved by death in 1952 and awarded Oyibo’s child to the brother of the deceased.
2.9.0 CONCLUSION
As we have seen from the above chapter, that a child must be either conceived or born during the subsistence of a valid marriage which must either be a statutory, customary or Islamic law marriage as these are the types of marriages recognized as valid in Nigeria in order to be regarded as legitimate, the absence of which the child will be said to be illegitimate with the attendant social discrimination that will be melted out on them by members of the larger society. Also a child conceived or born during the subsistence of a void or voidable marriage are regarded as legitimate children which was not the position under the common law, but the position has changed ,and a child of a void or voidable marriage will still be regarded as illegitimate as it will be inequitable to hold otherwise.