Bride Price, or, Reasons for my Daughters to Marry Kenyans or Ugandans, and my Son to Marry an American

The other day during a casual conversation in the mass communication department at UCU the office assistant mentioned that he was saving money to build a brick house for his mother to replace her thatched hut. Someone standing nearby slyly teased him that that wasn't the only thing he needed to be saving up for. After all, wasn’t he about marrying age?

A comment like that in the U.S. would require some explanation.  All else being equal the bride’s family pays for the wedding in our culture. Of course there are many exceptions, but one would need details to understand his specific situation. Here in east Africa, though, the reference was transparent.  His colleagues were joking about his saving money to pay not only for the wedding but also bride price.

Westerners sometimes find the concept of bride price offensive. Isn’t it demeaning to the woman, like purchasing her? Doesn’t it hold the potential for encouraging a man to view his wife as chattel and subsequently abuse her? Actually, that outcome is much more likely to occur in places like India, where brides bring a dowry to the marriage. Once the money is in hand, the woman has no protection.

Bride price in Uganda and Kenya at its best seems to have to do with building relationships between families. To begin with, because it is considered disrespectful for the groom-to-be to approach his future in-law alone, he is accompanied to his prospective bride’s family home by a delegation of his uncles, clan elders, or family friends through a process of several visits. Prescribed activities take place at each of these meetings, leading ultimately to an agreement about the payments to be made to the bride’s family. But that is not the end. In many cases small payments stretch out for years after the ceremony itself—in some cases indefinitely—providing ongoing reasons for the husband to maintain a good relationship with his wife’s family. Even coming up with required sum is a family affair; it is gathered through donations from the groom's entire extended family. From beginning to end, if bride price functions as it should (and one cannot deny there are abuses), it serves as a glue to bind marriages and families together.

Westerners, of course, may be curious exactly what sort of payment the bride price consists of. The amount and form of the payment depends on the ethnic group as well as the particular bride’s family, so my examples will be limited to my small set of experiences. Families may ask for livestock, new dresses for the aunties, cloth wraps called kangas, calabashes of traditional beer, cash—whatever is the most useful. Rural dwellers may want actual cows and goats, which requires careful selection of high quality animals on the part of the groom’s representative. For many urban dwellers, though, cash is fine. Years ago popular Kenyan satirist and humorist Wahome Mutahi used to refer to his daughter in his newspaper columns as “the Pajero”—a joking allusion to the form of bride price he expected one day to demand for her.

The negotiations themselves are laced with deep proverbs and metaphorical references. For a non-African observer it is fascinating. Once my husband and I were asked to be part of the groom’s delegation at a negotiation between two urban dwellers. The bride’s family metaphorically asked for 20 goats to open up the negotiations. The groom’s representatives understood that a cash substitute was acceptable and even desirable, but a quick private calculation made it evident they had not brought enough money for the value of 20 goats. They decided all they could do was to give what money they had. Upon receipt the groom’s representative counted the money and observed wryly, “I see the goats in your district are undernourished.”

My husband and I put all of this together and realized that our most financially viable direction on our children's weddings was to encourage our three daughters to marry Kenyans or Ugandans. We weren’t sure how we would set bride price but we figured our friends could help. Our youngest son, on the other hand, would need to marry an American. Our oldest son, as it happens, is already married. He and his wife eloped.

Photo below: The Maserati and her twin brother.