When I heard over the radio of a ‘law’ in Gumel in Jigawa State to reduce marriage expenses so as to lessen the pressure and make it easy for young people to get married, I was not really surprised because from time to time some places do this, though it may not be very effective, as people may not comply, and as I heard one lawyer said, enforcement may be difficult because there is no such law in the Nigerian constitution.
In any event, people usually complain about marriage expenses that have become a burden to them, yet it is like compulsory to do them because everybody does it even if in your heart you don’t want to do it even if you can afford to. That is how trends have become entrenched in our culture.
Some people would not like to do ashobi, but their relatives or friends would insist and before you know it is done!
In some places young girls ask their boyfriends to buy the ashobi for them because their parents cannot afford or are tired of buying them. Or that is how it is done there.
However, what really upset people is the kayan lefe which is one of my favourite topics. There is so much complaint about kayan lefe that one would believe it has a life of its own. But you hardly hear a complain about kayan daki, the furnishing of the house by the bride’s parents including the kitchen items like fridge, cooker and so on.
You hardly hear complain of gara as well, the icing on the cake so to speak, where food items would be provided by the bride’s parents to the married couple. It includes traditional snacks called kayan zaki and they are expensive.
The kayan lefe are clothes, shoes, bags, cosmetics and so on put in a set of suitcases , so how does that compare to the money spent on furnishing the house and gara?
Besides you do what you can afford. But the best way to tackle this as far as I am concerned is for the men to furnish their houses while the girls’ parents should buy new clothes for them. Because there is no way they will abandon lefe then enjoy kayan daki.
Even for their own pride men should insist on furnishing at least their own room. I once heard of where there was a divorce and the wife packed everything, including the curtains. The man improvised with his babbar riga, he may not have bed sheets of his own to use, so she might have packed them too, including spoons and cups.
Some wives would tell the husbands all the things in the house are their own if they have a misunderstanding. In such a case the man would be at a loss. The funny thing is that he may be able to furnish the house himself, but it is the culture that makes it normal for him to accept it as his right for the furnishing to be provided by the girl’s parents.
The rich set the phase. They travel and get exposure to new trends and as soon as they start doing them, those that don’t have money copy them. They go into debt to hire expensive event centres because their daughters insist or because other people they know used those places, so it wouldn’t do for them to go lower.
In few cases some refuse to go with the trend; they adamantly refuse to do ashobi either for other people’s wedding or for their own children.
There is one wealthy man who doesn’t do gara for his daughters, after all it is the responsibility of their husbands to provide food for them. Great!
A friend told me that she disapproved of gara as according to her it makes men lazy.
“They should be made to take responsibility as soon as they get married. In some cases the gara last for more than a year. For some that is when trouble starts when there is demand on him to provide. It is a culture that breeds laziness,” she said.
Even if there is going to be an enforcement against some expenses, it is the rich and the powerful that would break the law and nobody can do anything to them, after all when Hisbah was at the peak of stopping some marriage celebrations they wouldn’t dare the rich and the powerful and where they did, they stood the risk of being disbanded.
