CCMA registered 677 marriages last year

A total of 677 marriages were successfully registered and celebrated at the Cape Coast Metropolitan Assembly (CCMA) last year as against 693 in the previous year.

Last year the Assembly reviewed upwards its registration fee from GH¢20.00 for normal marriage registration process to GH¢30.00 whiles special marriage process went for between GH¢35.00 and GH¢85.00.

Mr Edward Steele-Dadzie Principal Executive Office in charge of Marriage Registry at the CCMA made this known to the Ghana News Agency in an interview in Cape Coast on Wednesday.

He said an amount of GH¢18,390.00 was realized from the registration of 613 normal marriages which went through 21 days public notices, whiles GH¢5,400.00 was made from 64 special marriages which took less than the 21 days’ notice.

He said 28 days into the New Year, 20 normal marriages have so for been registered with the assembly with no special marriage registration.

Mr Steele-Dadzie said the oldest couple that registered their marriage last year was aged 72 years for the groom and 68 for the bride and the youngest couple 23 years for the groom and 21 for the bride.

According to him the oldest couple registered in 2013 was an 81 year old groom and 63 year old bride, while the youngest couple were 23 year old groom and 21 year old bride.

Mr Steele-Dadzie expressed concern about the rampant rate of divorce cases reported and urged would –be couples to endeavour to adequately prepare themselves before going into marriage since the marriage institution was a very important one instituted by God.

He said it was unfortunate that some youth just follow the crowd and end up rushing into marriage without actually understanding its consequences and urged them to always go for marriage counseling to prepare them enough for marriage.

Mr Steele-Dadzie regretted the situation where young men were forced to marry girls they impregnated and stressed that in some cases such men were unemployed thereby making it very difficult to manage their families and that this did not augur well for the marriage institution.