More marriages, less weddings

The average Nigerian wedding today takes four phases basically, which obviously does not mean getting married four different times to four different persons, but to the same person in four different ways, as dictated by religion, culture, tradition, and civil law.

In Yorubaland, the Introduction ceremony (mo min n moo) is the first phase. Families of the intending couple formally meet for acquaintances and assert their consent to the proposed marriage. Some are done in a living room setting with strictly the nuclear or immediate extended families in attendance, and for some others, only the paying of bride price separates this from the proper engagement ceremony. During many Introductions these days, the groom and his friends prostrate severally to the bride’s family (signifying a plea to marry their daughter), intending couple cuts the cake, spokespersons (in Yoruba setting), usually referred to "Alága Ìjókó" representing the bride’s family and "Alága Ìdúró" standing for the groom’s side are used, gifts such as fruits, wine and drinks are exchanged and so on.)

The second phase is called the traditional wedding, i.e. the Engagement (Ìdána), which showcases the couple in their traditional attire, with virtually a replication of all that had taken place during the Introduction, paying the bride price and all other dues, and also bringing Engagement items ("erù Ìyàwó") as demanded by the bride’s family, e.g. 42 tubers of yam, kolanut, bitter kola, wine, luggage box (definitely not an empty one), bags of salt, sugar and honey, to mention a few. These are all meant to be warmly received by the bride’s family.

Surprisingly, a recent wind of returning the bride price to the groom’s family has swept across the land; in the light of not selling the bride (I wonder where this unstylish vogue came from). Bride price is slowly but surely becoming alien and unwelcome in the 21st century, because the practice is misconstrued as such a dehumanising practice to women, especially from a western philosophical point of view. Parents perceive that their daughters are being maltreated by wicked husbands on the excuse that they have been paid for like a "commodity". And while many blame this derision on families that take advantage of the bride price to make outrageous demands, others believe that how a man treats his woman may not necessarily depend on whether or not he paid her bride price, but greatly on his personality.

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In this contemporary era, it appears many are not aware that the bride price serves to protect the marriage from dissolution. It is NOT degrading to women and does not reduce them to slaves; NOT in any way tantamounts to making a man feel like a slave master who owns a slave he has paid for. In actual fact, bride price is an instrument to ratify a marriage. It is one of the highest honours confirming a bride’s value and womanhood; giving a husband the full rights to the sexual, economic, or procreative powers over his wife. It fosters a friendly relationship between the two families; providing a material pledge that the woman and her children will be well treated and a level of compensation to her natal family for the loss of her company and labour. It is most often a matter of social, cultural, symbolic and economic reciprocity, being part of a long series of exchanges between the families.

Needful to say, in some cultures, a marriage is not reckoned to have ended until the return of bride price has been acknowledged, signifying divorce. When a woman intends to leave her husband, she is expected to return the goods initially paid to her family. So before you decide to return the bride price on your daughter’s wedding day, consider that this is often done when a marriage is to be dissolved. Bride price is our heritage; a genuine and deep-rooted customary practice that makes marriages more meaningful and prevents the despicable way of life where wives are extremely easy to find like stones, and equally easy to dispose of, like tissue paper.

The Court Wedding is the third phase: This is the only form of wedding recognized by law; a legal licence for a woman to take up her man’s name and officially become "Ìyàwó Alárédè" (Legal Wife). This, in most cases, is only attended by direct relations and some friends. But if the couple intends to skip phase four, this might be the "big deal".

Finally, phase four happens in the church: This is the one all the other three above eventually lead to. Thanks to Cinderella, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Aladdin, Anastasia and all the fairy-tale cartoons that have stirred the fantasies of many little girls of someday marrying a Prince in a Castle garbed in a flowing white dress, with all the shimmering splendour all over them. This is where a minister claims to represent God and joins the two together in matrimony by a holy ordinance. As many believe, this phase of the wedding takes place before God and Man, and the couple’s name is written in the Heaven Book of Marriages (I have absolutely nothing to prove that, that book exists).

Today, however, it is really alarming and heart-breaking, how some families end up wallowing in debts to satisfy the pressure of having to do these four different ceremonies for the singular purpose of being referred to as Mr and Mrs, especially when they cannot afford it. While we all want the glory, glamour and glide that come with elaborate and multiple wedding ceremonies, I strongly believe God expects us to cut our coat according to our cloth. When less emphasis is placed on showing off and impressing people who don’t even give a monkey what you eat the next day, you sign up for a more comfortable and convenient life. The fact that some marriages go down the drain shortly after an earthshaking wedding ceremony proves the married life deserves more dedicated attention and input than the wedding day. Extolling weddings over marriages is like spending lavishly on housewarming when you have not even bought a piece of land, let alone lay a foundation.

Spend more time, money and other resources on building marriage – the life you live together after the wedding day(s). Greater is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof…

anges between the families.

Needful to say, in some cultures, a marriage is not reckoned to have ended until the return of bride price has been acknowledged, signifying divorce. When a woman intends to leave her husband, she is expected to return the goods initially paid to her family. So before you decide to return the bride price on your daughter’s wedding day, consider that this is often done when a marriage is to be dissolved. Bride price is our heritage; a genuine and deep-rooted customary practice that makes marriages more meaningful and prevents the despicable way of life where wives are extremely easy to find like stones, and equally easy to dispose of, like tissue paper.

The Court Wedding is the third phase: This is the only form of wedding recognized by law; a legal licence for a woman to take up her man’s name and officially become "Ìyàwó Alárédè" (Legal Wife). This, in most cases, is only attended by direct relations and some friends. But if the couple intends to skip phase four, this might be the "big deal".

Finally, phase four happens in the church: This is the one all the other three above eventually lead to. Thanks to Cinderella, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Aladdin, Anastasia and all the fairy-tale cartoons that have stirred the fantasies of many little girls of someday marrying a Prince in a Castle garbed in a flowing white dress, with all the shimmering splendour all over them. This is where a minister claims to represent God and joins the two together in matrimony by a holy ordinance. As many believe, this phase of the wedding takes place before God and Man, and the couple’s name is written in the Heaven Book of Marriages (I have absolutely nothing to prove that, that book exists).

Today, however, it is really alarming and heart-breaking, how some families end up wallowing in debts to satisfy the pressure of having to do these four different ceremonies for the singular purpose of being referred to as Mr and Mrs, especially when they cannot afford it. While we all want the glory, glamour and glide that come with elaborate and multiple wedding ceremonies, I strongly believe God expects us to cut our coat according to our cloth. When less emphasis is placed on showing off and impressing people who don’t even give a monkey what you eat the next day, you sign up for a more comfortable and convenient life. The fact that some marriages go down the drain shortly after an earthshaking wedding ceremony proves the married life deserves more dedicated attention and input than the wedding day. Extolling weddings over marriages is like spending lavishly on housewarming when you have not even bought a piece of land, let alone lay a foundation.

Spend more time, money and other resources on building marriage – the life you live together after the wedding day(s). Greater is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof…

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