(d) There are many other affidavits on record with stories of how they (women mostly) had been tortured as a result of a husband’s belief that since he had paid bride price for his wife, he had the power to own everything in the home, to beat her at will and to sell their small daughters in marriage at will. If a wife resisted such behaviour, she risked being battered, maimed, tortured and killed. Indeed many women have been victims of this kind of treatment almost everywhere in Uganda. The first petitioner MIFUMI (U) LTD is a Non-governmental organisation based in Tororo Eastern Uganda. Most of the people whose affidavits are on the court record are from Eastern and North Eastern Uganda. However, this court composed of Ugandan who were borne, have lived, worked and practised law in this country during a period of over half a century, should be able to take judicial notice of a notorious fact that the practice of bride price has caused untold suffering to thousands of women throughout Uganda just like their counterparts in Eastern and North Eastern Uganda. Some of us have witnessed even worse experiences than the witnesses from Tororo. The accumulated effect of all these affidavit evidence is to corroborate the affidavit sworn by Felicity Atuki Turner whose affidavit was reproduced in full above. The respondents have not rebutted or even attempted to rebut the account of these humiliating experiences that woman have to endure because their parents sold them for cows and are waiting to reclaim the same cows when their perceived usefulness comes to the end. What remains now is to determine whether the effects of the practice of bride price collection violates the Constitution of Uganda. Article 33(1) provides that women should be accorded full and equal dignity of the person with men. Yet under the custom of bride price, women are not treated as human being but as chattels. They are priced so low that they are exchanged for a cow or a few cows, a pig or a few pigs or a goat or a few goats. Their price is fixed without reference to them. Many young men cannot marry because they have no property to pay for young women. A young woman is not at liberty to choose a man of her heart because if he has no property, she has no chance to marry him. Marriage is not an exercise of free consent as required by article 31(3) of the Constitution. Bride price helps to perpetuate a belief in society that a man is superior to a woman, that once he buys a woman, he can batter her, humiliate her and treat her as he likes. In my humble judgment I would hold that the custom of paying bride price in a customary marriage is repugnant to good conscience and contravenes article 31(3) and 33(1) of the Constitution. It is high time that the custom is abolished and the woman should be set free. ISSUES NO.2 & 3. I will treat the remaining two issues together. They are whether bride price perpetuates conditions of inequality contrary to article 21(1) and (2). The third issue is whether refund of bride price as a condition precedent to dissolution of marriage fetters free consent in marriage provided for in article 31(3) of the Constitution. While discussing issue No. One above I generally pointed out the effect of the custom of bride price on women. I pointed out that it perpetuates the perception that a woman is inferior to a man. So I would answer the second issue in the affirmative. 63