"Are Dowries Dehumanizing" 29 jun, 2024

A bunch of warm greetings is what I bring to all the members of this community and beyond. It has been a while since we rubbed minds but thanks to @chant for bringing us together once again through the organization of this contest. When we talk about Dowries, I believe that we all have our different views towards it as it's been practiced in almost all cultures and traditions around the globe 🌍. Remain blessed as you read my view and perspective on the subject matter.

Share your understanding of the concept “Dowries are dehumanizing”.

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Dowries are dehumanizing? Hmm, well, before I drop my take on the concept, let's look at the meaning of dowrie and also that of dehumanization.

• Dowrie: this can be seen as the act of paying some items to either the family of the bride or to the family of the groom as a sign that he or she loves and wants to take the hands of either the bride or the groom in marriage. This practice is done all around the world and I believe every culture practices it. If the items are being accepted, it is a sign that the family of either the groom or the bride has accepted to give their sons or daughter's hands in marriage.
• Dehumanization: this can be seen as an inhuman action which has to do with oppressing, intimidating, enslaving, and maltreating a fellow human. We can consider people with such attitude as heartless and mercy less humans. In such attitude, there is no equality, value, respect, and sympathy.

Bringing the two words together, we can now say that the concept "Dowries are dehumanizing" can literally be seen as act where either the groom or the bride show lack of respect, value, love, mercy, and sympathy towards his or her spouse simply because he or she has paid dowry on him or her. We can also say it is an act of showing in-human behavior towards your spouse in respect to what you paid as dowry.

What are the kinds of material or monetary items demanded as Dowry in your community.

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This question takes my mind back to when my father told me that he paid only #1000 naira in marrying my mum. Hmm, that's approximately below 3 steem. This got me thinking if culture and tradition do change over time because that's not the case today. I remember when my uncle went with other elders of the family to seek the hands of his then-girlfriend in marriage, the item they went with was massive.

I remember them going with the following items

• 4 goats
• 1 pack of cola nut
• The sum of #200,000 (600 steem equivalent)
• 4 different sizes of traveling bags filled up with clothes.
• gerrican of locally made beer
• 1 mat (big size)
• 2 packs of maltina
• 3 packs of coca cola
• 2 packs of Lacasera.

I was like wow, this is serious. Those items were enough to set up a business. After seeing the drinks, I kept on asking myself what they used to offer when Maltina, Coca-Cola, and Lacasera were not in existence, but that was more like a rhetorical question.

Should Dowry be considered a Social Evil? Explain

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Before I proceed, I would love to say that it's an error to consider dowry as social evil. Dowry is something that has been in existence even before we got to know ourselves. Funny enough, both culture and religion has accepted and encourage it. Even the prophets we read about them in the Bible paid dowrie to marry their wives. Although their dowrie was not done as ours today, but it is still dowrie.

I don't know if you will believe that if not for dowrie, many us of could have grown in a broken home. The rate of divorce could have been more than what we have today. You might want to know my reason for saying this. But I believe you know that the reason some couple are still together is because of the amount of money spent on the marriage. Whenever you remember that it's not longer easy to marry due to how much you need to spend before getting married, you just have to calm down and hold unto your partner. Trust me, if marriage should be free today, hmm, many of us would change wife's and husbands almost every day. Thank God for dowrie.

What should be considered a solution to Dowries? Expatiate.

I'm a person that support the payment of dowrie 100% because it helps in reducing the number of broken homes. Nevertheless, if anything should be done, then it have to be going back to how things were done in the past. Some of the items we pay as part of dowrie are not necessary and they are almost unaffordable to a poor man who wants to get married.

Imagine you have to spend more than a million before you could marry. If we are to be sincere with ourselves, how many people can afford such huge amount? They just have to be a standard that can be met even by a poor man.

Conclusion

Dowrie is something that is as old as man. Our forefathers have practiced it and it has never been seen as evil. Although some people act in an unacceptable way towards their spouse because they have paid dowrie, that has never been the reason dowrie is paid. If we are to consider dowrie as social evil, then we should also have it in mind that we are going against the instruction of God because all religion books support it. Moreover, dowrie has kept many home unbroken.

I now call on @simonnwigwe, @ruthjoe, and @josepha to participate.