BRIDE FOR SALE

By -

Perhaps a better caption would have been, ‘what is the worth of a woman?’, ‘what is her present and future premium value?’. This question comes to mind considering what is taken in exchange for the ‘head’ of the woman at traditional marriages. Is she just worth some alligator pepper, oversized yams, palm oil, coconut, red oil, baskets of groceries, bags of rice, a box  of clothes and wads of cash? Or perhaps a baby manufacturer, milk factory, child processor, room toy , a piece of furniture or even antique?

When my friend, Winston (real name withheld) got married in June last year, he lamented, ‘omo Beryl, those guys are cruel. The bride price negotiation started from N1,500,000 aside the other items customary requested and exclusive of refreshment and logistics for the occasion which almost gulped N2,000,000. Ehn! How much am i earning to warrant all the harassment?’ . i told him, ‘guy calm down o, na u wan marry, just take care of their daughter o’. He said, ‘what! Look i will do whatever i want with her! I know what i suffered and how much i paid!...’

Take a snapshot of that mindset. Add clips of men being flogged in Northern Nigeria to prove or validate their manhood, another screen-grab of the LONG list of things to buy and people to see before ‘acquiring’ a bride , more clips...  and you still wonder why women are bullied in their home,  second class citizen, to be seen and not to be heard?

God started marriage. What was the bride price for Eve? Who started this ‘bride-price business’?

Let’s delve a little into the marriage list; that customary list unique to each tribe, indicating all the items to be provided by the groom’s family before they acquire the bride. Who makes the list? What constitutes the list in your tribe and what do the items signify?

In other news, i recently discovered that in parts of Asia, the bride’s family pays the bride-price...and that in Ghana the groom takes on the bride’s surname instead...OMG!

Also, in some parts of Africa, the value of the list can go up or reduce depending on the pedigree of the family or prospective in-laws, the physical appearance , level of education of the bride, acceptance of the bride’s family in the community and many other un-writable reasons.

Oh gosh! Perhaps I need to make more research, maybe get an authentic traditional marriage list from different tribes. This is going to be exciting...To be continued.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Social Media: Good or Bad???

By -
SOCIAL MEDIA:  Good or Bad? I escorted a friend to meet a date but at some point i was upset with him. He claimed he couldn't wait to meet her and yet while we were there (even when i left them alone) , he was spending more time pressing his phone and checking social media.  With the way we use social media today, one can’t help wondering how humans communicated before it or what we will do without it. If you agree with this thought especially the latter, then you’re probably already addicted to social media. With the development of technology over the years came the advent information technology, the internet and web 2.0 which brought about innovations in human interactions and communications like the new media and social networking (Creeber & Martin, 2009) . Now all aspects of human endeavour can be significantly influenced by social media such as politics, business, and religion. Some argue that social media has more negative influence than positive, however, it’s wor
Read more

THE BANKING HALL

By -
Image
...ibadan, Nigeria, 14.20hrs. The sun was shining with a vengeance that could only mean it had a misunderstanding with the clouds or some galaxial sky-mate   that fateful Friday afternoon. I managed to catch a bike eventually, only to get stuck in traffic moments later. Why? The Muslims were praying, their space wasn’t enough and then they blocked the entire market road with their mats. I was livid. Whatever happened to fundamental human rights! Blocking an entire ever-busy thoroughfare in the 21 st Century?...hmmm!        #i reserved my comments, for safety reasons# Minutes later, I was grateful to feel the cool breeze as i entered my bank with one mission, collect my ATM card & escape. The queue was discouraging but envisaged. It got to my turn (after ages on my feet) only to be told by the Customer Service Personnel (most comported i’ve ever met) that my card was being ‘Pouched’ from Lagos ...#my eyes grew bigger# ...after a cash deduction & application for its transfer
Read more

mY SuIcIdE NoTe

By -
Image
mY SuIcIdE nOtE The thoughts had been recurrent through the week. I imagined myself leaving a final note behind, but would I write? Other thoughts crept in… I thought to myself, “is it Normal? Is it Christian? Who can I tell of these strange thoughts? Who would understand that I can’t even a place a finger on what is really gone wrong? Is it my job, family, friends, fiends, my faith, my fate, my fears….what exactly? ” Suicide as described by kenea (a lawyer friend), is cowardice; perhaps he was right! {Thank God he  didn’t possessX-men (mutants) skills of mind reading, else I would have been found out} Some folk may think my life is a fairy tale, but then my nightmares were unending. One of my friends rightly analyzed me as 'managing perception'. If you knew me, have met me, or seen my boisterous self, bewilderment of my recent thoughts will panic you. But why would a seeming ‘perfect’ me be depressed I ask? Well, Google was a little help…depression & suicide t
Read more