Igbo Marriage Essay

An important point here is that marriage is a symbol of society in which kinship is produced and reproduced. It is also a symbol that is marketed and challenged by cultural change and gender politics—as is the case today with the existence of feminism and the feminist movement. For the Igbo, traditional forms of marriage are symbolic expressions of their cultural values and system of knowledge. As we have seen previously, each stage of the Igbo marriage process is linked to checks and balances that foster the appropriate knowledge and lineage understanding involved in the transactional exchange. As a result, the institution of traditional marriage remains popular, although the pattern of mate‐selection has changed due to adaptations to modernism. …show more content…
In the system known as‘marriage by capture’ (ijide nwaanyị n’aka ike), men have simply captured women and taken them as their own. In another system, men have received women as gifts or as plunder fromwar. In a third system, a woman is impregnated by a man outside of marriage, or is raped, resulting in a forced marriage (itujuro nwoke nwaanyị, ịnyaba nwoke nwaanyị n’olu). The reasons for the creation of the conditions that would lead to this type of marriage, according to informants, range from the man’s ‘inability’ to wait for the fulfillment of his sexual desires, to his being unable to afford the bridewealth that would allow him to be sexually active (ịchị amụn’aka) within a legitimate marriage relationship. Seizing women forcefully, under certain circumstances, may also be construed as an expression of masculinity.
Symbolic images that appear in the above examples of marriage portray the fact that it is a form of the language of power, gender, and sexuality. When designed and practiced properly by the society, however, marriage fosters dignity, honour, and cultural