NIGERIA MARRIAGE

Nigeria

In Nigeria which is located in West Africa, a husband never calls his new wife in her name. Only the women’s own children and relatives are allowed to use her name and this name is only for unmarried girls. If other people want to learn a married woman’s name they have to ask her husband to tell the name that her first family gave to her, and use that.

Dancing and singing are two of most important fragments in the wedding in this country and they are always combined with different big feast. The new bride is kept in a special hut where have to wait till her new husband is let inside. Before this husband has to give tobacco and chicken to the guest and when all have got those kind of products he goes the brides’s hut and since this moment the marriage is announced.

In the first day of marriage they kill a goat for the bride and the blood of this goat is poured over the hut. After this brides women comes and asks her daughter if she is pleased with her husband.

Then the dancing starts again and the drums call make visitors come and they give the bride anything at all to see her experience and another penny intended for camwood to rub the woman body. In Nigeria marriage is seen as a bound between blood relations and are also considered as very crucial.Today the traditional African-American weddings are dying and are also becoming more like the actual Western-style church weddings. This has essentially become norm in Nigeria currently. Even though people are born and raised in Nigeria they may be still likely to get a Western-style white wedding in the expense of a correct African wedding.

The reason behind this can be the Eurocentric missionaries and the Nigerian Church who influenced the African and the Church groups. Some people in Nigeria still live with old traditions and are preforming the traditionally ceremonies for they weddings.

After a week from wedding, next step in the wedding process is the meeting with the two involving families where they investigate and organize launch or dinner for each other.At this process next step is to donate some gifts to the new bride’s family, consisting mostly of yams, cattles or some money. After this process the bride is considered married to the groom and since this day she is member of his family. A long time ago there was must for the bride to be a virgin before the wedding, but in those times there are some exceptions but even today pregnancy outside of marriage is considered shameful.Polygamy marriages are legal and exist in country of Nigeria, but the Christian religion forbids it. Those marriages have though become less common in Nigeria those days. Maybe this happens due to the fact that a man in Nigerian marriages is responsible to provide for his family and in this place to provide for a family is a little bit expensive and the economic situation in this place it has become less common with polygamy marriages.