Recently, Nigerians and others were amazed at the rare gesture demonstrated by a Nigerian family in New Karu town of Karu Local Government Area in Nassarawa State.
The said family had during the recent traditional marriage rites of their daughter, Naomi, returned the 100,000 Naira bride price paid by the groom’s family. The bride’s family only took the sum of one thousand Naira from the 100,000 on the ground that they are not selling their daughter.
In another commendable gesture of the bride’s family, they presented a brand new car to their daughter (the bride) as a wedding gift to her.
While not every family in our society can demonstrate all these, but people have urged others to at least emulate the habit of the amount of money the bride’s family collected as bride price.
Unlike many families in this part of the world, who even collect far more than that as their daughter’s bride price, as though they are selling their daughter outright to the groom and his family.
More photos below….
In most cases you will hear these greedy and money obsessed families citing that they have spent a lot of money in raising and training their daughters, hence the reason they are demanding such outrageous sums as bride price.
Some of the groom’s family will grudgingly pay the dowry, and will continue using it against the bride. Some even go as far as abandoning the bride’s family immediately after the marriage rites as a result.
There’s a need to balance the relationship on both sides because marriage is meant to be a life time affair. Once the grudge of the amount charged for bride price is carried over into the marriage, then you should expect a crisis ridden marriage afterwards. And a completely savoured relationship between the two families!
