Which loss of the bridewealth diverges throughout the extremely commercialised repayments reported during the cities inside Ghana and you may somewhere else (Shope, 2006; Posel & Rudwick, 2013)
New payment out-of bridewealth occupies an essential updates from the relationship techniques across ethnicities in the northern Ghana, and additionally Dagaaba, Frafra and you will Builsa countries. One of the Dagaaba, the latest bridewealth, kyeuri, mainly constitutes instance situations because the libi-pe?le (cowrie shells, pick Shape step 1 ), fowls, smoking and soda crazy. In some instances, the amount of cowrie shells have to be consistent with what are taken care of the new bride’s mommy. Various other occasions, bonds out-of solidarity between the family or agreements of bride and you will bridegroom end up in a reduction in the new payment, of course, if this new bride’s agnatic kin dictate one before brand new groom’s family billed a premier brideprice getting a marriage, he could be planning to along with insist upon an inflated payment. Nevertheless, there are even standardized wedding costs along side Dagaaba options. At the moment, typically 2000 sГ¶pГ¶ ukrainalainen teini-ikГ¤inen tyttГ¶ cowries, otherwise dollars comparable, are acknowledged while the bridewealth for the Serekpere and its environments. That it count is short for a grave cures out-of an amount of 20,000 and you will over cowries which had been approved in the same area throughout the 1990’s. From inside the context out of neoliberal monetary regulations, and you can diminishing farming yields membership in this sensitive environment zone, our telecommunications having gatekeepers revealed that this new cutback into the matter off cowries is intended to make marriage reasonable. Significantly, new fee isn’t contingent on the brand new products of your own fiance, that is, whether the fiance is highly educated, divorced, has offered delivery or perhaps not since the reported elsewhere (Borgerhoff Mulder, 1989, 1995; Anderson, 2007). The new traditional norms governing the practice of bridewealth are ready out in the event that negotiable aside from new bride’s socio-monetary status and/or quantity of legal rights moved.
Anderson (2007: 159) accounts you to in the setup round the Africa, the wedding percentage is actually normatively raised by the groom’s ‘father, dad and you can dad’s brothers, sufficient reason for mom’s brothers and then make short contributions‘
This new bridewealth one of several Dagaaba, as round the societies inside the outlying northern Ghana, are an elaborate procedure of dealings within agnatic kin of brand new bride and groom and, normally, a third party, named good dendeo, a married relationship liaison. Usually, a married relationship liaison try one regarding the groom’s town exactly who has many relationships throughout the bride’s payment. The fresh new dendeo prospects the new groom’s family unit members with the bride’s agnatic kin, first so you’re able to officially ask for her submit wedding also to afford the brideprice. The latest relations of your dendeo into the bride’s family relations signify the second are considerate to the groom and his kin. The former including begs for the brand new groom’s kinsmen in the event the the new bride’s relatives are searching for so you can charge an excessive brideprice. Since the bridewealth might have been gone to live in and approved of the bride’s kin, the marriage relationship is made and you may legitimated.
Normatively, brand new yirdandoo, your head of family, instead of the dad of one’s bride-to-be, ’s the custodian of the cowries delivered once the marriage payments. At a group conversation inside Nator, near Serekpere, indicating the fresh character of the lead of one’s clan, Mwinyella, research fellow member, told me, directing so you can his paternal brother who’s the head out-of their clan, that: ‘that it man was my dad and so once i wed it might be their responsibility in order to [spend the money for bridewealth] for me‘. Yet ,, having parents in the place of tips designated because bridewealth, the brand new bridegroom with his agnatic kin are responsible for elevating it. This varies, to an extent, regarding Dagaaba membership displayed here. Yet it resonates which have bridewealth practices one of specific Frafra congeries, where normatively the fresh new groom’s dad and dad’s brothers are responsible for paying the bridewealth and where he could be unable to increase it the new groom converts to his father’s otherwise mom’s brothers to have service.
