Marriage is usually considered a union between a husband and a wife, but one thing that stands out is that the two families involved must come to an agreement and give their consent before a bride price must be paid.
However, our world is changing, and people are ignoring this important culture all because of love. Today's Hive Naija prompt reminded me of what happened between a couple I know very well who, out of love, decided to go against their family decision and ignore the culture but hired friends who stood in for them in the city, and they got married without the agreement of both families.
There is something about their union that made the families be in disagreement, and they stood their ground, but this couple feels that, after all, they are the bone of contention here, so as long as they are okay with each other, marriage can continue. So they got married and started leaving as husband and wife here in the city.
Who collected the bride price was totally a stranger. Can you imagine that? Can you call that one marriage? Children started coming, and none of their family members still visited. They became isolated from their family, and one day, the dad of the husband died, and this couple traveled to the village. They were treated like slaves, like they aren't part of the family anymore. Their stay throughout the burial was very ugly; they slept in the hotel all through, and when it was obvious they were alone, they had to travel back to the city.
I forgot to say that their kids were restricted to playing with the other of the husband's siblings' kids; it was that bad.
A few years later, the husband changed and started maltreating the wife; he was bringing in outside chicks to their matrimonial bed without an apology. The wife was going down slowly, and when she tried to involve her family and the husband's family, no one gave her attention. Everything in her life that needed family members, she never got any of them; everyone was just against her.
The marriage only lasted a few years, and all the love died; it was regret upon regret.
Sometimes, families have a genuine reason for saying no to a proposed marriage; sometimes it's just for some irrelevant reason. Maybe the guy is not a millionaire. For such a lighter reason, you can be patient to convince the family and have their consent before proceeding, but for a sensitive reason like the I don't want to disclose here, which was the reason for the disagreement of the families I discussed in this post, it's safer to avoid such a union to avoid regret at last.
Sometimes, love is not enough. From my experience also with my elder brother's marriage, it's safer to have both families agree before saying "I do."
