So it losing the bridewealth diverges throughout the most commercialised repayments advertised in urban areas during the Ghana and you can in other places (Shope, 2006; Posel & Rudwick, 2013)
New fee regarding bridewealth takes up a significant position throughout the relationship process across the ethnicities in north Ghana, as well as Dagaaba, Frafra and you may Builsa nations. One of the Dagaaba, this new bridewealth, kyeuri, mostly comprises particularly points once the libi-pe?le (cowrie shells, see Contour step one ), fowls, smoke and you can soda insane. Occasionally, the degree of cowrie shells need to be commensurate with that which was paid for the fresh bride’s mother. In other days, securities out of solidarity between the household or agreements of your own bride to be and you will bridegroom end up in a decrease in the fresh new percentage, and when the bride’s agnatic kin influence that previously the newest groom’s family energized a top brideprice getting a married relationship, he could be going to including insist upon an exorbitant percentage. Still, there are even standardised relationships money along side Dagaaba settings. Today, typically 2000 cowries, or cash similar, are usually accepted as the bridewealth in Serekpere as well as environs. That it count means a great grave prevention from some 20,000 and over cowries which had been approved in identical urban area regarding 1990’s. Into the perspective off neoliberal monetary policies, and dwindling farming returns membership inside delicate environment zone, all of our interaction having gatekeepers revealed that the latest cutback into the amount from cowries is meant to create matrimony affordable. Significantly, the latest fee isn’t contingent through to the fresh new points of your bride to be, that’s, if the bride-to-be is extremely knowledgeable, divorced, has offered beginning or not as the stated somewhere else (Borgerhoff Mulder, 1989, 1995; Anderson, 2007). The latest regular norms governing the practice of bridewealth are prepared away if flexible aside from the fresh bride’s socio-economic standing or even the number of rights transported.
Anderson (2007: 159) accounts you to definitely from inside the options around the Africa, the wedding payment was normatively elevated because of the groom’s ‘dad, dad and you may father’s brothers, in accordance with mother’s brothers and then make small contributions’
Brand new bridewealth among Dagaaba, given that round the societies within the rural north Ghana, is actually a complicated procedure for negotiations within agnatic kin off the newest bride and groom and you will, generally, a third party, titled good dendeo, a marriage liaison. Typically, a wedding liaison is a man about groom’s town who has some interactions in the bride’s settlement. The latest dendeo prospects the newest groom’s household members towards bride’s agnatic kin, first in order to officially request their hand-in relationship also to pay the brideprice. french women bride This new affairs of one’s dendeo on the bride’s family relations mean that the latter is actually careful towards groom with his kin. The previous along with pleads for brand new groom’s kinsmen if the brand new bride’s relatives are searching for so you’re able to charge an excessive brideprice. Given that bridewealth has been gone to live in and you can accepted because of the bride’s kin, the marriage relationship is created and legitimated.
Normatively, the newest yirdandoo, your mind of your own family, rather than the dad of your bride, is the custodian of your own cowries put while the wedding payments. Within a team conversation during the Nator, near Serekpere, proving this new part of head of your clan, Mwinyella, a report new member, told me, pointing so you’re able to their paternal bro who is the head away from their clan, that: ‘this man is my father and thus once i marry they might be their obligations so you can [pay the bridewealth] to have me’. Yet, to own families versus tips designated as bridewealth, this new groom and his awesome agnatic kin have the effect of raising they. This changes, to an extent, on the Dagaaba account presented right here. But really it resonates which have bridewealth practices certainly specific Frafra congeries, in which normatively the fresh groom’s father and you will father’s brothers are responsible for make payment on bridewealth and you will in which he’s not able to increase it new groom turns to help you their dad’s otherwise mother’s brothers to possess service.