The process of marriage in my land.

Note: all pictures used are my personal pictures and should be respected. Permission should be granted by me before using them.

Hello friend, welcome again to my blog. Today we have something special to talk about; marriage. One thing that I like doing is using myself and my experience as case study as possible, reason being that I prefer talking about things that I’m familiar with to carrying around speculations. I’m going to show you the secret behind good and lasting married life that Africans enjoy.

Africa is a large continent with many countries, languages, traditions and customs.

Therefore I’ll narrow my post down to my people called Ndigbo (ancient people) I’ll not digress from our marriage talk to now explaining to you who we are, maybe we can do that some other time. But just know that Igbo people are one of the greatest socialists a round the world. Hardly to find a country in the world without Igbo people.

Why we succeed in marriage.

Our custom, tradition and way of life is what sustains marriage in my land. Any woman who marry an Igbo man is said to be lucky.

Respect to marriage is highly esteemed by us

My people understand this so much, that marriage should be respected. Our tradition and custom especially as it relates to marriage remains the backbone of every successful marriage in my land.

Each family tries to nurture pious, morality and the knowledge of our customs and traditions which has been set by our forefathers to groom wonderful personalities that people likes to associate with.

Procedures of marriage In Igbo land.

Marriage in Igbo land is not crowded with mere feelings and sentiments. It’s rather a serious business for the matured minds. It is men that (proposes) goes for women in our culture, to ask for their hands in marriage.

In my land, marriage is not just one man’s business, it’s something that involves the couples to be, prospective in-laws, kinsmen and the entire community.

A young man is expected to be of age , working and responsible before going for marriage. 30 years is the normal age that our culture considers someone of becoming of age.

In my land, girls are advised to esteem moral value and good character seeing that the eyes of the people are on them. And parents do makes sure that their children ended up in good hands.

After a man have seen someone that he loves, he approach the girl and open up to her, if the lady is interested in his marriage proposal, that’s the first process but yet, it is not the seal or assurance that the marriage will hold.

The young man will now go and tell his father about his intention of getting married. If the father and mother evaluate their son and conclude that he’s really ready to marry, they’ll support his line of thinking.

Asking about the family linage, family background and behavior

After that the family of the man has agreed that their son will get married to the their wife to be, then they will prepare a day to go for inspection around the girls neighborhood. This is done in secret.

The purpose is to ascertain the family background and family characters to of the bride to be.

The parents will now trace the neighborhood of their wife to be, to ask neighbors nothing but about the girl in question, her family and their lineage.

The result that they get from neighbors will determine finally if the marriage will hold. Reason is that no Igbo man will love to live with bad actor.

Now that the family of the prospected groom has approved the girl and her background, they’ll now send information that they are coming to the girls family so that they can talk things out. We call this first meetup of the family ( knocking on the door process) which requires only but a few individuals from both families.

Here is where we’ll draw to a closure this part. We shall continue on this topic from my upcoming posts. Please stay tuned.

In our upcoming posts on this topic, I’ll tell your about paying of dowry and white weeding.

Thanks for learning more about me, my people and my culture as it relates to marriage.