Yoruba Wedding – Overview

In various African cultures, the marriage rituals begin with the process of initiation and courtship, which is then commenced with a spiritual ceremony between the families of the partners and a negotiable marriage contract. This contract usually entails the exchange terms of a family’s daughter, for tangible possessions like cattle or any other property, to be received from the bridegroom. This exchange is often termed as “bride-price” or “bride-wealth”.

Once the negotiations are done, the wedding ritual is further continued by the bridegroom’s ritualized visit to the bride’s home, during which time, symbolic presents get exchanged between both the parties. As the wedding time arrives, the bride is kept secluded from the community. All along this duration, only her family members and female attendants are allowed to visit her, who help her in getting prepared for the wedding ceremony.

The African wedding ceremonies are usually characterized by prayers, singing, chanting, dancing, feasting, sacrifices and exchange of gifts. Most of the prayers are focused on the harmonious married relationship of the couple and their future healthy children.

A typical Yoruba wedding process for a girl begins quite early. It usually gets initiated before a girl arrives at puberty, as her father promises the girl to someone he knows, and finds fit for her. Generally, the negotiation of the bride is done through an intermediary. If the bride’s parents feel that the suitor is worthy enough to be considered for their daughter’s husband, they consult a diviner. The diviner then predicts, whether the marriage is going to be successful or not, which is then followed by his prediction for the healthy babies. If any of the future prediction is negative, the proposal gets refused. If every thing seems to be positive, then the marriage proposal gets approved and the groom has to take the responsibility for conducting wedding sacrifices. The whole ritual is accompanied with an old proverb,

“As they have wisdom in the house of the intermediary, even so are they wise in the house of those who give them child in marriage”.

The most interesting part of the Yoruba weddings, is the ways the payments are done by the groom to the bride’s family. The groom makes three separate payments for the bride’s wealth. If the girl is old enough to marry, she is adorned with the sacrificial designs.

Yoruba weddings start as quiet and peaceful affairs and the bride and groom families feast with their own lineage. As the end of the day arrives, the “senior bride” escorts the bride from the groom’s home to her parent’s home. The bride’s parents bless her and pray for her successful marriage, which should bear her many children. She is then escorted back to the groom’s home, where she has to prove her virginity. If she is successfully able to prove her celibacy till date, the groom makes the final payment of “virginity money” to her parents. Yoruba weddings are also embarked with the ceremony in which ancestors are invoked to bless the couple. The participants then taste sacred kola nuts, honey and sugarcane and while doing this, they chant;

“They will ripen, they will eat and not grow hungry, they will grow old. Their union will be sweet.”

In African religions, men are generally allowed to have many wives, but they usually wait till the time they can afford the payment process of the marriage. In Yoruba custom, women who are doubted of adultery, whether proved guilty or not, offer their prayers to female divinities like the Yoruba Osun, who was accused of committing adultery by her husband Orunmila.

Yoruba culture showcases many aspects to the soul. Every aspect is an attribute of the person’s being. For instance – evi is breath, which leaves the body, when a man dies and iponri is a person’s destiny, which depends on the partial rebirth or reincarnation of his paternal ancestor. Ojiji is man’s shadow and Ori is his head. Ori is considered to be a result of double spirits, a part of which acts as a guardian in heaven, and the other dwells in man’s head and body.

The customs of African weddings have been quite consistent since a long time, as many African intellectuals and practitioners of African religion continue to use these rituals religiously. They use these rituals to powerfully express their own commitments for specific moral principles and ethical values that govern their civilization.