Marriage

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At breakfast the other day I read an article in the Tree Talk newspaper, which is a bit like the Funday Times (that’s about the level of newspaper I can cope with) about bride price in Uganda. It was interesting reading young people’s view on what it should signify and what it actually signifies. The bride price is an amount of cows/gifts/money given from the groom’s family to the bride’s as a way of thanking the girl’s parents for the good job they have done in bringing her up. It is not the price to ‘buy’ your wife and she therefore be your property! There were many examples of how parents had been almost forced to ‘sell off’ their daughters for need of the return they would get, and hence many young girls not finishing education. The amount is decided at a ceremony between the bride and groom’s family usually the day before the wedding.

As for choosing your husband or wife, it seems from what I’ve seen that the man has more say. I have a friend out here who thinks a friend of hers from uni wants to marry her. She is clearly over the moon about it but it seems like she doesn’t have a whole lot of choice in the matter.

Once married it is tradition that the husband can NEVER look his mother-in-law in the eyes nor talk to her in close proximity, i.e. she must be behind a wall or far away and vice-versa for the wife and father-in-law!

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