The Need To Decolonize Our Minds
(Marriage In Focus)
By Elochukwu Nicholas Ohagi
The understanding of Marriage and what marriage is for us in Africa is erroneously based on what the Europeans say marriage is.
The superiority of the white man's way of life has forced the Africans to take the European way of life as the ideal. You need to listen to our people when they talk about marriage. They tell you how marriage is totally between a Man and a woman, without any connection with their families. This is exactly how Europeans sees Marriage.
The Europeans have been changing the table without any one having the balls to question them. I can still remember them telling us how marriage should be only between one man and one woman. That was when our ancestors were marrying more wives according to their capabilities. They made it a sin for a man to marry more wives. Same Europeans now tell us that a man can marry fellow man. I have no issues with what a people choses to be their culture, never. My problem is when you force your culture on me and make it look as if it is the ideal. No culture is superior to another.
My understanding of Marriage as an Igbo is what marriage is to me. To those that held tenaciously to the European way of life as the ideal, I must tell that they are the way they are today because of the years of colonization of them by the Europeans. In Igbo land, one person doesn't marry a wife. 'Otú onye anaghị alụ nwaanyị'. This doesn't mean others should have canal knowledge of your wife, never. It means that the family plays an important role in every marriage. No one marries alone. These helps to protect the woman. In Igbo land, we recognize ndị Ọgọ, (the wife's people and vise versa) every aspect of the people, even Ụmụ Ada, Ndị Ntorobịa and Ụmụ agbọghọ are all involved in marriage negotiations. We observe this kind of a communal living that is foreign to the white man.
Everyone understands his place and is never allowed to interfere unnecessarily. We do not encourage anyone to be bullied. We understand that some bad people might take advantage of certain aspects of our culture, and that's why Ụmụnna are always there to settle issues. There is also room for reforms.
We have copied everything, including the white man's laws as our own. We neglected everything about us and made our laws alien to our own very selves. Is this not why people don't recognise married people as married, even when they have done traditional marriage, until they do White Wedding.
We relegate our customary laws and make a constitution that stands against our way of life. We see ourselves, including our laws as inferior. And we think we can grow.
Marriage as an institution should be centered on our culture as a people and not on a foreign understanding of marriage. We must decolonize our mindset.
Things are never right simply because Europeans are doing it. Never!
Elochukwu Ohagi, 2020.
