This new payment of bridewealth uses up an essential updates on the relationship processes across the ethnicities when you look at the north Ghana, and Dagaaba, Frafra and you will Builsa nations. Among the many Dagaaba, the fresh new bridewealth, kyeuri, mainly constitutes for example factors while the libi-pe?le (cowrie shells, find Figure 1), fowls, smoking and you will cola insane. In some instances, the amount of cowrie shells must be in keeping with what are taken care of the fresh bride’s mother. In other days, securities out-of solidarity amongst the families otherwise settlements of bride-to-be and you may bridegroom end up in a decrease in the new payment, of course the fresh new bride’s agnatic kin influence that before the newest groom’s relatives billed a top brideprice to have a married relationship, he could be browsing plus insist upon an expensive fee. Nevertheless, there are also standardised wedding repayments across the Dagaaba options. Today, normally 2000 cowries, otherwise dollars similar, are generally acknowledged once the bridewealth during the Serekpere and its particular environments. It matter is short for an excellent grave prevention out of some 20,000 and above cowries which had been accepted in identical city regarding the 1990s. Within the perspective regarding neoliberal financial regulations, and you can dwindling agricultural returns membership within this fine environmental area, the correspondence having gatekeepers indicated that the cutback to your count out of cowries is meant to build relationships sensible. Which reduced the latest bridewealth diverges throughout the most commercialised repayments claimed for the towns from inside the Ghana and you can in other places (Shope, Site Shope 2006; Posel & Rudwick, Site Posel and you will Rudwick 2013). Significantly, the fresh percentage is not contingent up on the circumstances of one’s bride, that’s, whether the bride is highly experienced, divorced, has given birth or perhaps not since claimed somewhere else (Borgerhoff Mulder, Resource Borgerhoff Mulder 1989, Source Borgerhoff Mulder 1995; Anderson, Site Anderson 2007). The customary norms ruling the technique of bridewealth are prepared out in the event that negotiable regardless of this new bride’s socio-monetary updates or the quantity of liberties directed.
The previous along with pleads on the behalf of the hyГ¶dyllisiГ¤ vinkkejГ¤ newest groom’s kinsmen if the the latest bride’s nearest and dearest are seeking so you can fees an inflated brideprice
Generally, a marriage liaison are a man on groom’s village whom has some affairs throughout the bride’s payment. The latest dendeo leads the new groom’s family members to your bride’s agnatic kin, very first to help you formally ask for their unique turn in relationship also to pay the brideprice. The brand new relations of dendeo towards the bride’s family mean that the second try careful to your bridegroom along with his kin. Since bridewealth could have been moved to and you may approved of the bride’s kin, the marriage partnership is formed and you may legitimated.
The brand new bridewealth among Dagaaba, while the round the communities within the rural northern Ghana, is actually an elaborate procedure for deals involving the agnatic kin off the fresh bride and groom and you may, normally, a third party, titled a great dendeo, a wedding liaison
Normatively, the brand new yirdandoo, your face of family, as opposed to the father of one’s bride-to-be, is the custodian of the cowries delivered while the relationships costs. At a team discussion inside Nator, near Serekpere, proving the fresh new character of direct of the clan, Mwinyella, research participant, told me, directing to his paternal cousin who’s the head regarding their clan, that: ‘this man try dad and so whenever i get married it would be his duty to help you [afford the bridewealth] to own me’. But really, having family members without tips designated once the bridewealth, the fresh bridegroom and his agnatic kin have the effect of increasing they. Anderson ( Site Anderson 2007: 159) reports that from inside the settings all over Africa, the wedding commission is normatively increased by the groom’s ‘dad, grandfather and you will father’s brothers, along with mom’s brothers and come up with small contributions’. That it differs, to an extent, from the Dagaaba membership demonstrated here. But really they resonates which have bridewealth practices one of some Frafra congeries, in which normatively brand new groom’s father and dad’s brothers have the effect of paying the bridewealth and you may where he’s unable to raise it the fresh bridegroom transforms to their father’s or mother’s brothers to possess support.