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Hello Fellow Steemalive,
Welcome to my contest entry on how traditional marriage is done in my village, organised my @tenguhatanga through @steemalive. Please take your time as i put you through the process in which traditional marriage is been done in my village.

Firstly i am from okrika, okrika (wakirike) LGA in Rivers Sate.

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Process Of The Marriage

The first step to take as a man who is willing to marry a lady from my vilage okrika is to introduce your self to the parents of the lady you want to marry. This process only requires a bottle of wine which will be handed over to the family of the lady.

After which you can request for the marriage list which requires items for the dowry for both the father, mother and the kins men. A token of #10,000 is required to collect that list.

Note: The content of the list depends on the family of the woman. In some familes, the father of the lady will only collect #10 from you and tell you to take care of his daughter. Likewise the mother but in most cases kins men will always want theirs.

For a man willing to take a lady from okrika as a wife, you are likely to spend nothing less than #400,00 on the father alone and about #250,00 to #300,000 on the mother taking the amount to be spent on the brides parents to be about #700,000

After paying all the requirements in the list given to you, the next step is what we call Okuru Kaka.

The Okuru Kaka Marriage

The okuru kaka marriage is the final Traditional maarriage rites amongst the okrika people. There are two types of traditional marriage in okrika.

• Ya or Iyaa Marriage:
  Here, the couples must come from the samr tribe or clan. A man proceeds to the marriage rites of the side bride and his mandated to produce three pieces of cloth ( kano cloth, india cloth, and raffia palm cloth also known as Okuru. An elder ties the okuru cloth round the couple, invoking blessings on them. After which the couples walks round town putting on singlet and wrapper and bare footed with the woman tieing the okuru, recieving blessings in return from people of the town. It is a must that you trek while group of women in both familes sing and follow you behind.
  Below is picture of an example of ya marriage

• Igwa Marriage:
  This means mixed; here the woman and the man may marry even though they are from different families or tribe. According to okrika tradition, marriage once bound can never be withdrawn. But if divorce is unavoidable because of infidelity, the woman still belongs to the previous man (Ya marriage) even if she marries another man. The woman and her possesion including children still belongs to the previous man who performed the Ya marriage rites.

A woman who married under the Ya system can still be married under igwa. If the woman has not been previously married to any man under the ya system, children from the igwa marriage belongs either to the lawful husband of the wifes mother or to her brothers.

This are some pictures of the process of Okuru Kaka Marriage in okrika

The Okuru material

how women follow you while walking round town

With this, i hope i have been able to make you understand how traditional marriage is done in my village?

Thanks For Reading Through

Cc: @steemalive
Cc: @focusnow
Cc: @tenguhatanga