White wedding, as the name implies, is a wedding for the whites. I was not born in the era of the white missionaries in Nigeria, but I know that beside destroying some devilish practices and bringing the gospel to us, the missionaries did so much harm to Africa from the cultural perspective.
We are all happy claiming to be free from the era of slave trade, but the truth is that we are still slaves to the white man in more ways than one. Just yesterday while speaking with a friend on Skype, this issue came to my mind, and I posted it as a question on my Facebook wall. I also had the urge to talk about it in this column and bare my mind on this issue of white wedding. . From the responses to my Facebook Wall post, I realised that some actually know the truth, but they don’t want to come out in the open and say it because their religious leaders are watching. I also know that some of my readers who claim to be born again, but are actually fanatics won’t see reason with me.
By the grace of God, I am a born-again Christian who does her best to live in accordance with Biblical principles. But this has been a source of worry to me since I became an adult. Why do we now prefer the white man’s culture when it comes to weddings? Why have we suddenly relegated our own rich culture to the background and have indirectly told the white man that his culture is superior? How did we give the place of traditional marriage to church wedding? Why has the judicial system embraced the white man’s culture and thrown our own away? Why are the churches strong in their promotion of the white man’s culture?
I have gone through the Bible that we read and believe in, but I didn’t see any place where it is written that white wedding is the only recognised form of marriage. The Bible is a book about the Jewish people. Going through my Bible from Genesis to Revelation, I have not seen where it is written that weddings must take place in the church. I also looked at the lives of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, even the wedding in Galilee where Jesus turned water to wine; these weddings were carried out according to Jewish customs and traditions.
The Jews never bought another man’s culture and way of life. If truly we are the spiritual Jews as we claim, are we supposed to throw our own culture to the background and embrace the white man’s culture? Now, I am beginning to understand my teachers when they told me that the white men came to us with the Bible and the Plough. They came to destroy our culture, both the good and the bad, and brainwashed us into accepting theirs in entirety.
This has eaten so deep into our society that we now look at people who were involved in just the traditional form of marriage as not been married. The Pentecostals see it as living in the sin of fornication. The orthodox churches on their own part will not allow you to receive Holy Communion until you are wedded in church. I know of some mothers who go out of their way to make sure their daughters wed in the church just because they must maintain their position as a “Christian Mother”.
Who is fooling who? These white guys came and told us to drop our good way of dressing and start wearing shirt and tie. Look at what is happening in Nigeria; people are no longer allowed to go to work in African attires. I was surprised last week in Abuja, when I walked into a bank to see the staff dressed in African attires. Could it be because it was Friday? I was happy and proud of them, but I still feel it should be a daily thing.
Have you ever heard of whites going for two different weddings, excluding court wedding? Africans now go through three different kinds of marriages. This is one reason young men are afraid to get married because they seem not to be too buoyant for the three.
As an Igbo woman, I know what it costs to successfully host a traditional marriage. And now we have people insisting on going for the so-called white one immediately after that. Must we wear the long white dress and suits to have a fulfilled life? If the prayers and blessings of the parents are no longer relevant in the lives of the couples as churches are trying to prove now, what stops the priest from coming to the traditional marriage venue and blessing the couple immediately? Must we spend more money than is required for our weddings just to become good and dedicated Christians?
I know of a priest who recently gave out his daughter in marriage. There was no form of church wedding, only traditional. The priest prayed for the couple after the whole marriage rites were over. Why then do they make us believe we must come to the altar for our marriage to be blessed? I recently told a friend that all I need in my marriage is the blessings of my father. He is also a pastor and, therefore, I don’t need to go to the altar for anyone to pray again.
Don’t get me wrong; I am not trying to underestimate the importance of the church, but I insist there is no need for unnecessary expenses made all in the name of white wedding when in fact it is not culturally relevant. I think it is time the churches in Africa review their doctrines and beliefs to suit our culture. People should be free to choose whichever one to go for and not see it as a religious obligation that must be fulfilled for acceptance by the church.
The most important part of any union of husband and wife is the acceptance of the bride price by the girl’s family. Once this is done, the girl becomes a member of the man’s family.
In the Igbo culture (forgive me because I am not too conversant with other Nigerian cultures), a girl is supposed to spend few days with the man’s family before her marriage (Ileta ala).This is done for the girl to be sure she wants to live with the man’s family the rest of her life. She is to carry a pot of wine on her head to the husband’s place after her traditional marriage and this sees her off to her new home. What a beautiful culture we have!
Now, the white man came and abolished this beautiful culture and sold his own to us and we, without questions, embraced it. They have destroyed and buried our culture so much that our religious leaders now suspend a couple for living together after the traditional wedding.
Tell me; how many white couples have done the African traditional wedding after their own white wedding? How many of them have worn our African attire during their wedding?
I think it is time we went back to our culture and stop using the Bible wrongly. I think it is time we started cutting our cake (if we must) during our traditional weddings and drop the suits and long white dresses. Let us bring back the glory of the African bride. Don’t read this and keep quiet, please pass it across and put it into practice because it is time we let the white man know that our generation is wiser and proud of what nature has blessed us with; a rich culture
