Need to Review The Marriage Process in Igboland- The Difference Feb 11 2008

NEED TO REVIEW THE MARRIAGE PROCESS IN IGBOLAND

THE DIFFERENCE FEBRUARY 11, 2008

BY NNAMDI OBODOECHI (OJUKWU OF GREECE)

PAGE 35

 IKO NKWU

IHIOMA NNAMDI- MY BELOVED DAUGHTER

ON TRADITIONAL WEAR BY NNAMDI OBODOECHI.

Marriage is a union of a man and a woman as husband and wife. It was established by God the Almighty from the beginning of creation. As we read in Genesis 2:21-24, “For Adam was caused to fall into a deep sleep and he slept and He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib which Yahweh Elohim had take from man, made He a woman, and brought her unto the man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh.’’

Many definitions have been given to marriage from different schools of thought, but marriage in its full meaning is “an association of the two opposite sexes (male / female) to form a common nomenclature.’’

To make this possible, Yahweh Almighty created everything male and female. Let us not to forget that God’s purpose in creation was to give us a happy life. One of the ways in which He does this is through the marriage arrangement. Satan, however, has misled many people, including our traditional rulers, to make the marriage process a very difficult one through the demand for exorbitant dowry or a long list of presents which many of our sons cannot afford.

A case in point is Mbano, Imo State, where the process the process of marriage has been made particularly hard. Even some local government areas in Anambra State have fallen into this trap, thus pushing many of our boys into marrying from different places where the cost of marriage is very low without minding the consequences.

The time have come for us to correct the system so as to enable our youths to marry without too much demands being made on them by their prospective in-laws. This would drastically reduce the problem of our sons and daughters staying in their parents’ home without getting married. As God says in his everlasting word: “He who find a wife, finds favour from the Lord.’’ We have to make the marriage process favourable to both sides so that the couple would be able to live happily after marriage according to God’s perfect will.

Let us make every effort to put things right by making the marriage process flexible and fair so as to reduce the stresses which hang on our necks today. How can we do this? First, I suggest that the marriage process / dowry should be the same in all parts of Igboland. All the chiefs, Igwes in each village / town should come together and agree on a common (tradition) marriage law as the exorbitant cost of marriage in Igbo land has clearly become a barrier to happiness to many of our people. The law when formulated should be widely circulated in all the clans through town unions. Each village / town should have her own copy, and any failure to abide by it should attract a reasonable fine.

Implementing such a (tradition) marriage law would further boost our culture and hopefully inspire neighbouring tribes to reform their customs.

Incidentally, the culture of Igbos used to be admired by other tribes and the entire world because the Igbos are Jews in Diaspora, but today we have so bastardised our good culture which God gave us because everyone likes to sound Western without realizing that much of Western culture leads to destruction because of its devilish content.

We have to value what we have and be proud of our God given culture in Igbo land / Nigeria, not running after Western cultures which endanger our lives and can alienable us from God.

Marriage is meant to be a thing of happiness to the couple involved, including their families. Consequently, we have to reduce the demands made on our would-be in-laws because no matter what we take from our in-laws, it will never fully compensate for what we spent to train our daughters. We should bear it in mind that our daughters are not for sale, so our parents should stop seeing their in-laws as trees that can produce money. As our people say, the fowl obtained from Idol, that is “Okuko agwotara n’ ogwu n’ eso ogwu ala.’’

Obodoechi, a.k.a De Ojukwu of Greece,is The Difference’s Contributing Writer in Europe.