Wedding and marriages in Nigeria

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By Odumodu Gbulagu

Marriage is a sacred union between a man and a woman, oftentimes with the aim of procreating, or companionship.

Nigeria is a place, where almost everyone wants to copy what others do, without even minding if it’s going to be good for them.

Most Nigerians often don’t think about the hazards and challenges of marriage, they only look at it from the enjoyment angle.

While many women see marriage as an end in itself; having a big wedding that would be the talk of the town, and having their friends gushing over their weddings, some of them still believe in the fairy tales of living happily ever after, and they tend to forget the primary aim of marriage and that’s building up a family.

Events has taught us that building up an ideal family most times involves a lot of sacrifices, and denials.
It involves maximum concentration, and the challenges are enormous.

Our people pay much attention and give a lot of time in planning their weddings, than they do planning their marriages.

Marriage has to do with the future, while wedding has to do with today.
People use millions of naira to plan a wedding that wouldn’t last more than six hours, and after that, spend a life of misery as there won’t be enough money to take care of the family.

Many forget that after marriage, comes a greater deal of financial responsibilities, as pregnancy, childbirth, and other things are expected to come up.
You know in a contemporary African setting, the man of the house is also expected to take care of the in-laws too, and all these things require money.

Most people go out of their way to break banks in their efforts to have big weddings.
Many go as much as getting loans from financial institutions to wow and impress the invited guests.

Most businesses, and or sources of livelihood of the couples have crumbled or suffer serious setbacks after weddings.

Some couples start a fight immediately after the wedding, as their expectations of meeting up and realizing the money they spent on the weddings are usually not met.

Our people should know that only five people are important for any wedding to take place, and they are:
The couple
Their sponsors
The officiating priest or whoever is sealing the marriage.
This wedding has same legitimacy as society weddings.

I’m not trying to condemn big and society weddings, as all fingers are not equal.
But I’m only of the opinion that couples should do what their financial muscles can carry, without trying to impress anyone.

Big and small weddings though are not yardsticks to measure successful marriages.
The only thing that can make a successful marriage is understanding what marriage is, and planning for the future, and not just for a day of the wedding.

Let prospective couples also understand that after the wedding, all the guests, and all the Asoebi people who wore different kind of colorful clothes to the wedding would be gone.

It would just be the husband and the wife, and all the wrong choices and financial implications would be staring at their faces.

The key is, do what you can and save your money to give your family a better life tomorrow.
In Nigeria, most invited guests don’t even give wedding gifts other than plastic coolers, and stuffs like that.

No matter how your wedding is, there must be people who would criticize it and get angry that they didn’t eat or drink.

No matter how big your wedding is, the frenzy won’t last more than 2 weeks.

If people invest half of the time they use to plan their weddings into planning their marriages, the level of divorce would be low, and the quality of family life would increase.
The burden won’t be on any of the partners, and there’s bound to be better children.

Don’t ever take any loan for wedding, unless you want to be perpetually indebted.
Don’t try to impress anyone with your wedding.
You can have a small wedding, and organize your wedding anniversary when you might have made enough money to spend lavishly.

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