High cost of traditional marriage rites, especially bride price in some Southeastern states, particularly Imo, is a common experience many men who have followed their would-be-wives to their communities for marriage consummation encounter.
Stories of men who abandoned their marriage plans while others go on with the experience but later severe relationship with the bride’s families as pay back package are very obtainable. The situation puts pressure on the newly married couple. Women who were affected are canvassing revisiting the issue that is perceived as crucial to the success or otherwise of their marriage.
Nevertheless, traditional marriage rites, especially the bride price payment, are regarded as very important aspects of Igbo culture. Bride price itself is seen as a symbol of total commitment and bond between the man and woman under the Igbo traditional nuptial culture.
Though the practice has been grossly abused in recent time by some kinsmen who do not understand the underlying reason for payment of bride price in Igbo land, these traditional rites remained very crucial in the region.
While the women of younger generation in Igbo land are of the opinion that payment of bride price on a woman and extortion of the groom reduce the bride to a mere commodity, in the sense that commodification breeds desire to control or treat a woman as an object, the older generation believe it’s a primary marriage rite in Igbo culture and should not be a reason for dehumanization of women as the western feminist school of thought suggests.
Despite institutional and individual efforts at reducing the cost of traditional marriage rites in some parts of the Southeast geo-political zone, especially Imo State, to foster timely marriage among young men and women of marriageable ages in the region, the desired result has remained a mirage; no thanks to greedy parents and kinsmen who see marriage as transactional instead of cultural relationship between the families involved.
A young polytechnic graduate narrated her ordeal in the hands of her kinsmen. Her husband- to-be was given a long list of items to purchase for the family.
When asked the reason for the doubled items, he was told he was getting married to a graduate. Kilode!!! All this for a national diploma graduate! What if she was a Higher Diploma graduate?
I inquired from the young girl which state she came from, and I wasn’t surprised when she mentioned, “IMO state”.
The advantage that men are perceived to have, is like commodification in the sense that by payment of the bride price, the man is given the right of a buyer. These notions are often mediated deliberately to portray men as potential abusers and opportunists who take pleasure in the suffering of women. Thus, the women find bride price payment culture and unending demands from their kinsmen as enabling tools of patriarchy for the perpetual subjugation and enslavement of women.
While the Igbo culture dissociates itself from the extreme provisions of radical feminism, the bride’s parents and kinsmen need proper sensitization and reorientation in this regard as the bride price cannot equate all the wealth expended in raising a bride from cradle to adulthood.
Hence, hiking the cost of bride price and other traditional marriage rites in general, has been a major issue that sometimes determines the fate of a young woman of marriageable age in Igbo land, especially in Imo State allegedly known for mountaineering these rites during their daughters’ marriage.
