Is tradition the reason why a lot of ladies are not married?

Most times it breaks my heart to find out that women who are suitable for marriage are not married. Initially I thought it was because they were ugly; but as time went on, I discovered it is not so in most cases.

I was talking to a colleague the other day and what he told me baffled me. I used to think the whole marriage concept was easy - fall in love, propose, get married, have kids etc.

Little did I know that it is more than that. He was telling me about his friend who is about to get married and is contemplating if he should continue with it or not. Everything had been going as planned for the wedding till ‘the list’ came out.

The List aka bride price in every Nigerian culture contains a list of things to be purchased by the groom’s family to the bride’s family.

Some are rather longer than others. This one handed to this colleague’s friend happens to be on the lengthy side. The bride price is approximately one million naira.

Yes! One million. How do you expect this man to get that sum of money? Even if he is well to do, what about the ‘white wedding’? Won’t money be spent?

After the wedding won’t he meet the needs of his new home? I’ve even find out that in some places, the price is higher than that. I wonder if the people that write this list often put the groom and even the bride into consideration at all.

The groom because of the struggle to meet up and the bride who may not get married if the groom doesn’t meet up with the traditional standard

I learnt that some parts of Nigeria only ask for a certain number of bags of salt and the wedding is good to go. Girls from that region are very lucky because they might have no issues getting married.

Some traditions don’t allow the first daughter get married if her family is a family of girls only i.e. no male child. It is believed that it is her duty to bear the consequences of her mother’s inability to produce a male child.

Hello! Is she the one who gives children? Such a girl cannot get married because of tradition. She is allowed to sleep with whomever she wants to produce children and in very rare cases, if she can produce a male child, she is allowed to marry at a very high price.

If she is not able to produce a male child, she and her children will leave under her father’s roof making her children fatherless. Bear it in mind that she and her children bear her father’s name.

Yet in some other places, the groom is to be flogged and if he cannot withstand the pain, he believed to not be strong and so cannot marry the girl. Is it really necessary to go through such pains and yet be deprived of who you love?

Tradition has restricted a lot of people from doing things, hindered women from getting married. I wonder if it is compulsory to actually wed traditionally or just do the white wedding.

Do you think tradition is a reason why some women don’t get married? You can always drop your comments in the box bellow.__________________________________Maxwell Deborah is an undergraduate of Applied Geophysics. She reads a lot, likes to watch movies during her spare time and a lover of physics. She likes to keep her circle small, a good listener and good adviser. She owns the debbrahlizzy.blogspot.com. You can send contact her via mail: debbrahlizzyblogspot@gmail.com.