An opinion by two individuals in Ghana, Philip Afeti Korto & Adelaide Setordji calling on Parliament to pass a law on bride price in the country has generated divergent views among the public space.
They are of the view that families should desist from charging exorbitant dowries to make marriage affordable and joyous for young marital couples.
Sharing their views in an article, the duo indicated that the absence of a backing law in the payment of the bride price is causing some families to use their discretions to charge grooms and to take undue advantage of the situation to satisfy their greed.
They noted “In contemporary Ghana, some families are charging huge sums of money aside from numerous items as bride price. In most cases, bridal families receive the cash equivalence for non-cash items such as drinks and cloth. This makes the marriage list very expensive for young men who are interested in a lady. It is as if the bridal family is “selling” its daughter to the groom. This might be the reason why some husbands abuse their wives in divergent ways. Perhaps they assume that the expensive dowry is tantamount to the “purchase” of the bride from her family.
In case the groom is not financially stable, the marriage struggles for years because some grooms even take bank loans to be able to pay the dowry. In that case, the husband in the new marriage has debts to settle and at the same time, he is required of performing his financial duties in the marriage.”
It is in this view that the two are calling on Ghana’s Parliament to pass a law on bride prices in the country.
“It is high time the Government of Ghana and/or traditional authorities regulated the bride price collection regimes to sanitize the marital space. To this end, Parliament must pass a law on bride price collection just as there is Marriage Ordinance, Wills Act and Intestate Succession Law, all relating to marriage apart from such provisions in the 1992 Constitution,” they stated.
They are also calling on Traditional authorities to equally establish communal bride price regimes to ensure that there is uniformity and something affordable to potential grooms.
A Traditional Authority’s Perspective
Sharing his view on the matter, the Tufohene of Oguaa Traditional Area, Nana Kwame Adu VI says passing a law on bride price could rather pose problems for families.
He explains that the various tribes in Ghana are beautiful but have divergent traditions that govern their societies.
“So are we going to make a law based on each traditional area and their culture or based on all traditional areas having to follow one path regarding the payment of bride price,” he questioned.
Imagine we pass a law and I want to marry and per the constitution am to pay GHC 2 as bride price, and my in-law says he wants GHC 5, it is only the law court the constitution can be interpreted for the understanding on GHC 2 payment. After going to court with my in-law on the matter, will the marriage still come on without problems?”
Nana Kwame Adu VI said he will rather opt for education on traditions for would-be couples and their families to understand the reason behind certain traditions.
“So that if the understanding is there, the families of the bride won’t ‘sell their daughter’ to the groom-to-be,” he added.
An Academic Perspective
To Dr. John Windie Ansah, a Senior Lecturer with the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Cape Coast, although some families charge a huge amount of money as bride price, it should not be a basis to call for a law to be passed on bride price in Ghana.
“We have to understand that not everything can be passed into law. If a law is made to back the payment of bride price, it will give some people the platform to do certain unhelpful things undercover,” he noted.
He also stated, “even if the payment of bride price is passed into a law, the question is how much will the law say the to-be groom should pay as a bride price – Is it GHS 5000, GHS 10,000, GHS 2000?”
According to Dr. Ansah, it is because of issues such as the amount the law will say should be charged as the bride price that the customary practice needs to be left as it is.
He believes that one way to address the charging of huge sums of money as the bride price is by letting those who do that know what they are doing won’t help.
He is also of the view that instead of passing a law to regulate the charging of bride prices in Ghana, we should rather promote consensus building in the charging of bride prices where families of the would-be can reach an agreement on the amount to be paid.
The Sociologist believes this is the way to go if we want to have marriages where newlyweds will have their peace after they are married.
Legal Perspective
Meanwhile, a Private Legal PR actioner, Lawyer Francis Acquah-Annan says the writers of the article missed out on a critical point causing all these discussions.
Addressing the issue on the Atlantic Wave on ATL FM, he explained that the essence of paying a dowry is on the value and respect attached to the spouse the man wants to marry but it is not a sale.
He emphasized saying “The law under the customary law does not allow anybody to be sold. When you are paying the bride price, you are only exhibiting the value that you have for your bride. How priceless, how wealthless you think your spouse is…It’s not a means to compensate the family as has been written in that article in the daily graphic; that it means the bride is being sold to the groom. It is not like that! Under customary law that is not our thinking”
To him, no one can ever pay if the bride price is to sell or to compensate for the financial upbringing of the bride.
Lawyer Acquah-Annan however said the bride price payment can be waived depending on the two families involved.
“There are numerous authorities which indicate that the payment of bride price can be waived varying certain conditions by the two families that are negotiating on behalf of the two parties. Customary law itself has a mechanism for regulating some of the abuses within itself.”
“One characteristic of it is that it is adaptable to changes. So when society feels that it is changing, the form of marriages under the customary law we see now, it isn’t how it looks like in thousand of years past. No, wasn’t that’s not how it was,” he continued.
Source: ATLFMNEWS
