MY CULTURE AND TRADITION

My name is ThankGod precious chinemerem from Amauzari community in Isiala mbano of Imo State Nigeria. As an Igbo woman I know some of our traditions.
Today I will be talking about when to marry in an Igbo land. That is the when to pay a woman's dowry in the Igbo land. Follow me as I tell you a bit about this.

In every Igbo land it is said to be a taboo to pay for a woman's dowry or come to seek for a woman's hand in marriage on the Eke market day. This is a well know law and tradition that should be obeyed as it has consequences if ignored. We grow up with this knowledge, so we become councious of it, that whenever any of our family members are getting married we will need to ask questions about the market days to be able to fix when the event will take place.

Recently I notice that most people don't even obey or follow this tradition because of religion and believe. So in other to avoid this tradition most people prefer to have the introduction and marriage right in the township especially when the parents of the couple are in township, they go as far as pulling their uncle's from the village to township to observe the whole thing. Some of them do not go through the traditional way of list collection through the kindred. So the girls parent prepare their own list and present it to the man. Which is very wrong if I may say( I stand to be corrected).

Now let's come down to my own community, here in my community which is Amauzari, it is said to not to fix any of your occasions on Afor market days because we buy and sell every Afor market day. It's not like anything will happen to you or there will be any strong consequences, No. But if you fix your wedding/burial ceremony on any Afor market day, the community may likely not attend because everyone will be at the market buying and selling, because the next Afor will come in a week time which 7 days. So villagers will need to sell their produce and buy what to eat for the next seven days before another Afor market day. Now you know why you shouldn't fix any occasion on the Afor market day In my community.

Moving forward, soon I will be writing on some of the cultures and traditions of my community. But for today I just want to leave this little knowledge with you in case you, your friend or brother is planning on marrying an Igbo girl, so that you will know when to go for her hand in marriage as long as her village is concern. And if it happened that the girl is from my community, you will also have to keep in mind that you don't allow your dates to clash with Afor market days.

Stay tune as I will be sharing with you all about my culture and traditions from time to time.
I hope you learnt a new thing today and if you have any questions feel free to ask in the comment section. If you also have a contribution or something to share to us in your own tradition, the comment section is open for everyone. Thank you for reading through 🙏