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In this paper, we develop a unified framework for the a priori and a posteriori error control of different lowest-order finite element methods for approximating the regular solutions of systems of partial differential equations under a set of hypotheses. The systems involve cubic nonlinearities in lower order terms, non-homogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions, and the results are established under minimal regularity assumptions on the exact solution. The key contributions include (i) results for existence and local uniqueness of the discrete solutions using Newton–Kantorovich theorem, (ii) a priori error estimates in the energy norm, and (iii) a posteriori error estimates that steer the adaptive refinement process. The results are applied to conforming, Nitsche, discontinuous Galerkin, and weakly over penalized symmetric interior penalty schemes for variational models of ferronematics and nematic liquid crystals. The theoretical estimates are corroborated by substantive numerical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]