News
Bride Price: The Acholi
(July 01, 2012) New post on Black Feminists |  |
 | Bride Price: The Acholiby blackfeminists |
The life and traditions of the Acholi people was disrupted by the two decade-long civil war. Their tradition Nyom (marriage) in Acholi is a lengthy process, which begins with a boy seeing a girl and starting to court her. She is typically expected to be coy and hard to get in order to protect her morally upright reputation. The boy eventually wins the girl's consent. He goes to her father and pays a small installment of bride price [otongo keny] after which the pair is considered engaged. This may last for a longtime depending on the final completion of bride price payment after which the bride's status changes from girl [nyako] and becomes a house wife [dako ot].
The girl always looks out for the boy who owns plenty of cattle. However, a boy chiefly depends upon his lineage to get both the permission to marry a girl and the ability to provide the material goods required to pay her bride price. After the visit, the boy satisfied with what he saw, tells his family, who subsequently find out about the young lady's clan and family's status socially. Acholi bride price is traditionally settled in cows, sheep, goats, spears and hoes. Bride price is of no obvious benefit to the woman rather to her family. At the time of negotiation she is an object of trade between her buying husband and her selling family.
Marriage traditions have also undergone transformation due to modernity and education. Parents and clan elders now rarely have anything to do with choosing a partner for their children. The war in northern Uganda began in 1986 and was marked by the Lord’s Resistance Army’s well documented brutality against civilians, including the seizure of children to be used as fighters and the widespread use of mutilation, cutting off the lips, ears, noses and limbs of victims. The violence led to nearly two million people being displaced from their homes and being forced to live in refugee camps. At the same time the Ugandan army was repressing people and their were allegations of land stealing which have not been resolved. In 2008,the government of Uganda and the LRA rebel group announced they had reached agreement on a system of war crimes trials and other methods of accountability for atrocities committed during the country's long-running civil war. Both sides hailed the agreement as a significant breakthrough that removed a major obstacle to a final end to the conflict.
In the past parents tended to marry their children as early as possible as a way out of poverty but the bride price for a girl also comes in handy as a support to the rest of the family. If married early, the girl is likely not to be educated, but destined for producing children and work. She has inherited her mother's life. When the boy's family agrees, he is given a green light to marry the girl. He informs her and she in turn, announces to her parents that special visitors will be arriving on a given day to conduct the marriage ceremony. The girl's mother then informs the girl's entire family. In preparation for the visitors, the structures in the girl's homestead receive a new layer of mud mixed with cow dung. On the agreed day, the boy, his father, brothers and other family members go to the girl's home and are welcomed into the house of her mother. The visitors are not allowed to stand, but kneel throughout the introductions, with the girl's father asking the questions. He asks the visitors who they are and the boy's father responds appropriately. The girl is asked to ascertain she knows them.
Often, the girl's bride price is not spent but saved to offset her brothers' bride price’s when it is their turn to marry and pay. Bride Price refunds are made in the event of a divorce, although the value refunded depends on the terms agreed upon when the dowry is paid. Traditionally the parents of the boy have to pay five heads of cattle, six goats, and household goods right from the needle to the clothes of the parents.
Acholi women enjoy great freedom to divorce once not satisfied with their husbands but on condition that the new husband pays the bride price that her earlier husband had paid. Fornication and adultery are punished in the Acholi tradition. It costs 5 sheep for fornication and 15 for adultery.
Samantha Asumandu