Adeyemi Falade
Weddings are a big part of the social scene in Nigeria these days, and from attending one every Saturday, you probably think you know all about how it’s done. Wrong!
Here are five wedding traditions we bet you never knew existed.
Want to marry her? Then kidnap her!
You want to take a bride from the Latuka tribe of Sudan? Then you have to kidnap her first!
Strange as this may sound, it is true. Elderly members of the man’s family then go and ask the girl’s father for her hand in marriage. To show acceptance, the father beats the man up.
However, if the father disagrees, the ‘suitor’ can still forcefully marry the girl anyway.
I trust Nigerian men, they wouldn’t even bother asking anymore.
The Crying Bride
I’m sure you’ve seen quite a number of brides cry at their weddings, it’s more like a norm, understandably due to the emotions of the day.
For the Tujia people of China however, the bride must cry! Yes, the bride must turn on the fountain of tears for an hour a day, everyday in the month before the wedding.
10 days after the bride starts, the mother joins the picture, then the grandmother. By the end of the month every female in the family is crying alongside the bride.
You think that’s crazy? It gets crazier! On her wedding day, the bride must ‘cry a song!’ and get judged by the congregation on how beautifully she sang … sorry, scratch that, cried the song.
Potency and Virginity Test
As beautiful as they look, read what they had to go through to become one.
The Banyankole tribe of Uganda are another weird sect. When a couple want to get married, it is the bride’s aunt’s duty to teach her niece how ‘perform’ well in bed. She (the aunt) also has to test the groom’s potency.
To carry out this duty, the aunt has to have sex with the husband even before he has sex with his bride. There’s also the option of the aunt watching the couple having sex, to make sure he is capable.
You know a few aunties who might want to relocate to Uganda?
The Flogging Test
These weird traditions do exist, even here in Nigeria.
In the Fulani part of the country, a young man ready to take a bride has to be flogged by older members of the tribe to prove his manhood. With whips, clubs, you name it.
If the man shows any kind of weakness or even whimpers, then the wedding would be called of. Some even die during the process.
So … because I want to marry now, I should willingly chop cane??
How about the garbage shower?
I can’t imagine friends and family trashing rotten eggs and other smelly stuff on me a night before my wedding, yuck! In Scotland however, it is a normal pre-wedding tradition.
To show love, the couple would be pelted with every nasty thing you can think of – mud, spoiled food, dead fish and more. The Scots have this belief that if a couple can withstand this, their marriage can withstand any ups and downs.
And there you have it. Which one do you think you can go through with?
This post first appeared on thenet.ng
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