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Last Saturday, my best male friend in Ghana got married. Good luck to him! I really like the bride. But you know what's funny? The wedding was yesterday although they were already married. Ghanaians are so funny. They do traditional marriages, called an "engagement", a rather elaborate and expensive ceremony unifying the two families. The man has to buy all kinds of things for the girl: clothes, ring, Bible, jewellry and booze for the family. That's marriage. But thanks to past British colonialism, Ghanaian girls don't feel properly married unless they've said I do the western way. Which is why half the time, the girls are pregnant at the altar, something that makes foreign missionaries frown--yikes, they had sex before marriage! Anyway, congratulations twice to the not-so-newly-weds!
Monday, June 29, 2009
Wetting my feet
I'm new to blogging, but I'm going to do my best!
Last Saturday, my best male friend in Ghana got married. Good luck to him! I really like the bride. But you know what's funny? The wedding was yesterday although they were already married. Ghanaians are so funny. They do traditional marriages, called an "engagement", a rather elaborate and expensive ceremony unifying the two families. The man has to buy all kinds of things for the girl: clothes, ring, Bible, jewellry and booze for the family. That's marriage. But thanks to past British colonialism, Ghanaian girls don't feel properly married unless they've said I do the western way. Which is why half the time, the girls are pregnant at the altar, something that makes foreign missionaries frown--yikes, they had sex before marriage! Anyway, congratulations twice to the not-so-newly-weds!
Last Saturday, my best male friend in Ghana got married. Good luck to him! I really like the bride. But you know what's funny? The wedding was yesterday although they were already married. Ghanaians are so funny. They do traditional marriages, called an "engagement", a rather elaborate and expensive ceremony unifying the two families. The man has to buy all kinds of things for the girl: clothes, ring, Bible, jewellry and booze for the family. That's marriage. But thanks to past British colonialism, Ghanaian girls don't feel properly married unless they've said I do the western way. Which is why half the time, the girls are pregnant at the altar, something that makes foreign missionaries frown--yikes, they had sex before marriage! Anyway, congratulations twice to the not-so-newly-weds!
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As an African man I had also resented the idea of a traditional as well as a church/religious/colonial (make a choice how you refer to it) marriage.
ReplyDeleteAs it turns out, the traditional marriage provides no security for women against polygamy. Thus, feminists that hid well behind gender activism did one good thing finding security in this western/British/religious way for women going into marriage.
The world is learning and unlearning I guess.
~Fi. :-)