By By Staff Writer
Monrovia – Social media caught fire early Thursday morning after Counselor-at-Law Moriah Yeakula publicly correct Gender Minister Gbeme Horace Kollie over a post telling unemployed husbands to report their working wives to the Ministry for support.
In a Facebook post that went viral, Minister Kollie told “married men” that if “you na geh work” and your wife “is working or earning an income and she is not supporting you and the children,” they should come to the Ministry of Gender. She said the Ministry “will invoke Chapter 5.3 (e) of the Domestic Relations Law” to make sure the men get support.
But Yeakula, a Family Law specialist, say the Minister “terribly wrong” and that the law does not mean what the post is saying.
Writing in response to messages she received, Yeakula broke down Chapter 5, Section 5.3, Subsection 5.3(e) of the Domestic Relations Law.
According to her, the law only says: “Wife liable for support of her husband if he is INCAPABLE of supporting himself AND is or is likely to become a public charge.”
She explained the meaning in plain terms:
“Public charge means he’s on government assistance or relying on govt for survival. Incapable means unable to earn- for instance, a man bedridden, sick from stroke, had an accident, decapitated, mentally ill, etc…”
“Unemployment is not incapacitation/incapability,” Yeakula stressed. “A capable but lazy man sitting home all day, not looking for job or keeping one should go to Gender and yall tell his wife to support him? No Madam Minister, that is not the law.”
Yeakula also pointed to other parts of the law. She said Subsection 5.3(c) only puts burden on women to support children when “the man cannot be found or the man is dead or incapable.”
And she reminded the public what the law says first: “husband is liable for support of his wife. PERIOD.”
She cited years of Supreme Court rulings to back it up — from Dean v. Dean_ in 1939 to Kogar v. Kogar in 2023.
Quoting the Court, she wrote: “the financial capacity of the parties will not necessarily relieve the husband of his legal obligation to support his wife since a plea of poverty is to no avail to relieve him of such obligation.”
In Brown v. Kollie 2014, she added, the Court said “in as much as the husband can eat and drink on a daily basis, it is also the privilege and right of the wife to do likewise.”
She also noted that under the law, a husband is expected to give his wife one third or 33% of his income as alimony, “even while married with no divorce filed.”
Yeakula said she believes the Minister’s post came from advice from her legal team. She is now calling on the Minister to ask that team for Supreme Court opinions to back the interpretation.
“If there is no Supreme Court opinion to back that interpretation from your legal department, please do the right thing to retract such policy of awarding men spousal support just because they are unemployed and kindly correct the information given to the public,” she wrote.
She warned that wrong interpretation of the law “can be dangerous to the welfare and safety of women and children.”
Yeakula admitted that “you’d rarely see these instances where the man is not working and the women is earning but not supporting her children or the home.” She said women usually support when they have money.
