It has become a known fact well established both by law and human understanding that a man or woman who has come of age and has the intentions to settle with a partner is free to do so without any fear of being reprimanded by families and friends. It is highly encouraged by families and friends as a way to support and motivate the man to take that bold step of marriage and once he has done it, he is seen and respected by all because the path of marriage is seen as a path towards maturity.
This article is geared towards a better understanding of the role of traditional marriage as against the belief by some quarters that Christian marriage is more superior; using the Igbo ethnic group of Nigeria as a case study.
In Africa marriage is seen as an important aspect of life because they believe that procreation is a mandate and not a thing of choice and the only way for procreation to take place is for a man to leave his family and cling onto a woman for him to start up his family. In Igbo tradition, a man’s wealth is calculated not just by the number of yams in his barn or number of lands, livestock and the size of his compound rather the number of his children goes a long way to determine how much harvest he will be getting after every planting season and this is the reason why he will marry more than one wife.
An Igbo man is obligated to work hard at all cost to feed his family and to make sure he leaves some amount of wealth in ways of lands, livestock and cash crops. Therefore he gives all he has to achieve this feat and it all starts from marriage.
Before the colonial era, the Igbo nation had their method and style of marriage which is done by their norms and traditional rites. These rites are carefully followed because marriage was seen as a sacred institution which carries a lot of responsibility and goes a long way to affect the community positively or negatively but nowadays, the story has changed.
The man who has reached the age of marriage will either be the one who chooses his bride or in some occasions, the father, mother or elders of his family (clan) may make that choice for him because there is this belief that a man does not marry a wife alone which is why he must involve his kinsmen in every step he is taking as regards to the marriage rite.
When the choice of a maiden is made, the man informs his people of his intentions towards the girl; this information is received with great joy because it is believed that the young man is about to start his journey to maturity. If his father is alive, there will be a father and son discussion which will border around the girl and everything concerning her. In this way, his father gets to know something’s about the girl and her family. This will make the father to either go by himself or send someone to go on his behalf to do some background check on the girl and her family as a way of knowing the girls family very well.
Some factors may stop the marriage from holding, for instance, if the girl is from a family were epilepsy runs in their linage maybe that an uncle or one of her siblings is with such condition the marriage will automatically be cancelled without any form of consideration. Another factor which I must not fail to highlight for record-keeping sake is if the family of the girl or that of the guy has any inclination to armed robbery, fraudulent activities, stealing of any kind, ritual dealings or anything that is against their norms and tradition.
In any case, where any of the factors is seen, the marriage is cancelled without any form of dialogue or second thoughts from either family because the Igbo people have this belief that one who is born in a family of thieves tends to become a thief in future. They also believe that illnesses like epilepsy and others which are believed to pass through the gene of one family member to another posse a very big threat to the institution of marriage. This is a way to curtail and control the spread of such illnesses and vices from rearing its ugly head from the children or upspring of such union.
When all these factors are considered and it becomes clear that both families are free from all of them, the man will ask his father to accompany him to the girl's house and the father, on the other hand, will bring two or more of his kinsmen who will stand as witnesses to prove that the young man has started the journey of manhood. This visitation is the second visit which is called in Igbo language iku aka (asking for the girl's hand in marriage). Don’t forget that this second visitation was preceded by what the Igbo’s call i ju ase (to inquire) and this was done by both families.
If the second visitation becomes successful the next stage comes in which is known as i me isi ego nwanyi (paying of dowry) and by the time this stage is completed, it is assumed that the man has married the wife because all other traditional rites will follow suit. In all of this, it is worthy of note to state that the man and the woman have not had any prior carnal knowledge of themselves which means that both are seen as virgins to sex. I must state that marriages of old done traditionally have stood the test of time and there has been little or no cases of divorce because both parties believe that the institution of marriage is sacred and must not be tainted or allowed to scatter due to human inadequacy.
In recent times i.e. after the colonial-era traditional marriage began to witness a dwindling rate because of the impact of both the church and the colonial master’s ways of life. This has made the church wedding more prominent and in a way making a lot of people to see the traditional marriage as less important.
There is a pertinent issue bordering on which of the types of wedding that should be done but the church or white wedding is known or originated from the whites and it is seen as their own culture or traditional marriage. My question is, why should one do both white and traditional marriage since both are from the different cultural background?
This question is aimed at bringing to bear the confusion or conflict between the white and traditional marriage as regards to Africa, her culture and marriage rites.
Just yesterday I was discussing this with a friend of mine. Doing the two is just waste of time and resources and it shows how fanatic we are about religion and how inferior we feel about our culture. Why do the people that brought church to us not do our own traditional marriage too?