Should Africa ban bride prices?

mnyikungu

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Uganda's highest court will next month rule whether the giving of bride price is unconstitutional. Is it time to ban dowries?

Known as 'lobola' in the south, 'mahari' in the east and 'wine-carrying' in the west, a prospective husband is expected to give a certain amount of money and goods such as cattle, goats, or blankets before a marriage is agreed.

But women's rights activists in Uganda have asked the Constitutional Court to ban it, arguing that the age-old traditional practice reduces wives to being the property of their husband.

Do bride prices infringe human rights or symbolise love and good faith between families? If you're a woman, does a dowry make you feel objectified or appreciated? Did the failure to pay a bride price stop you from getting married? If you're a man, do you feel bride price is a burden? Should states legislate on such cultural issues?
 
First of all, I dont believe bride price is unique to Africa.

In my opinion, bride price, as an age old tradition should not be banned. However, the sums should not be exhorbitent. They should just be token amounts whose purpose is to keep alive the tradition of dowry rather than to enrich the recipients (bride's family).
 
No need to ban it. Has any study or research revealed that bride price is the causative effect on family misunderstandings? I dont think!

Of course there are some exceptional wild-behaviored crooks in the societies who take it for advantage, so as to brutalize the ladies.

For any married friend inside here, he /she knows how sweet is the exercise of breaking to the home of the lady/bride, and introducing the marriage issue, and how the sweet talks of the dowery proceed!

Mimi binafsi huwa inanifurahisha sana na huwa napenda kuhudhuria sana mambo ya mahari. Yanaiunganisha familia ya kijana,(mashangazi , wajomba, babawakubwa/wadogo, binamu etc) maana watakaa pamoja na watajadiliana hadi wapate chochote kinachotakiwa na familia ya bibi.

So i support bride price, as is kind of a uniting string to the families.
 
Perceptions differ from one society to another! Dowry is totally a prize given to a married woman as an appreciation to acceptation of being united to the intended groom.

Paying dowry if banned will vanish the true meaning of marriage! As a uniting symbol, DOWRY is very crucial to make the procedures of marriage complete!

Even if we go back to our ancestral cultures, no body was able to marry if he could not give anything to the family of the bride groom, be it financial or anything to symbolize as a prize to the married woman!
 

Dear PakaZimmy,
Dowry should have been banned yesterday. It is a symbol of slavery to women and a tool of oppression in our societies. How many women could not leave their abused marriages because they could not give back to their husbands what their parents received!
The fact that this tradition has been there since time immemorial doesn't at all sanctify the custom! We need to stop practising some old traditions of our forefathers. We live now in a new age - an age of open love!
Ikiwa hao mashangazi zako, wajomba na baba zako wakubwa hawakutani pamoja mpaka wawe wanazungumzia mambo ya dowry basi hio inasikitisha sana tena sana.
Dowry is not at all a uniting string to any families. If dowry is anything then, it is a uniting thing to the oppression of women in our societies.
Please, let's ask the women of this country, what do they think?
Please, women, speak out for yourselves. These guys want to continue seeing you under men's subjugation for ever!!!
 

Hi Lampart,
You spoke it all!!!
No woman would add a word to the statement you sent out!
"No strings attached"should be the new marriage motto!!!
 
Kisusi,

>no body was able to marry if he could not give anything to the family of the bride groom, be it financial or anything to symbolize as a prize to the married woman!>

In an old lingua that is called BUTTER TRADE!!!
But, in a modern lingua it is called EXPLOITATION!!!
 
Ngida,

>In an old lingua that is called BUTTER TRADE!!!>

You are 100% right Ngida.
A woman is NOT a TRADABLE COMMODITY!!!!
 
well dowry is definitely a symbol of subjugation but not only from men. Infact, if you see it closely, it gives power to at least one set of women (the mother in laws). Often the demand of dowry comes not from the groom himself but from his family and in particular his mother.
 
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