The Fashion in Elite Marriages

By Ambassador Abdullahi Aliyu Jibiya 

One of the sobering moments that I have been encountering in the recent past (recent being the last few years) are the new fads in conducting marriages among elite parents and young men. Quite apart from the debilitating costs that female parents have imposed on marriages, the level of neglect of realities (as ordained by sunnah and tradition) is dumbfounding. 

A few months ago, a relation approached me with a sorrowful face, literally crying his heart out, not so much for a solution to his problems but for a sympathetic face to empty his lamentation. He had to sell off his farm to buy "Kayan-ɗaki" for his first daughter’s marriage. Now his second daughter, from a second marriage is due and the bride insisted that whatever was bought for the first daughter must also apply to the second. The only asset left to sell was the house they lived in, and the wife said “well, so be it”. The application of sunnah and tradition, she added, cannot begin to apply with her daughter.

He sold the house at a giveaway price and satisfied daughter and wife and they moved into a rented house. As the date approached, I received an embroidered invitation card, printed on a thick, shiny card and muttered to myself, “the thousands of naira that went into this could have bought the rice and stew”, but could not tell him. Not that it mattered if I had. 

On the day of the ceremony, we all gathered in the mosque and listened to the Imam struggling to get the parents of the groom and bride utter the formal words to marry off the children - “siiga”, that statement that formalizes the marriage. As you attend marriage ceremonies, you realize that we, as parents, have occupied ourselves more with the ceremonies than substance of what a marriage should be, more with form than the content.

The specific formulation of this exchange can vary depending on culture, but basically it is a formal statement wherein the family of the groom requests for the hand of …… on behalf of ….. in accordance with the sunnah. The response from the family of the bride accepts to give away ….. to ….. in Nikah according to sunnah for a "Mahr" (dowry) of …. Thereafter, the family of the groom accepts the conditions on the agreed "Mahr". The marriage is solemnized. 

The Certificate of Marriage was signed on behalf of the couple by their parents and, again, I wondered if the importance of that document has been explained in detail to the new couple. In addition to rights and duties, the Marriage Certificate doubled as insurance against mischief and mistaken identity, especially in these days of wide travel across cultures. Let me cite a personal experience.

A few years ago, I had to relocate, with my family, to a foreign country. Part of my documentation required giving the exact names of my wife and children. As ordained by Islam, my wife bears her father’s (maiden) name. Officials of that country spoke in no uncertain terms, that my relationship with her, and with the children, must be investigated, because we have different surnames. What solved the problem was a Certificate of Marriage that I designed several years earlier when I was learning a computer program, Corel Draw. I was so impressed with my design, with signature spaces for myself and wife as well as my father and my in-law. I showed it to both of them and asked them to sign. That sheer luck saved us an embarrassment. The document became useful again when we travelled to Pakistan, where the hotel insisted that we must show evidence that we were a couple before we could stay in the same room. 

Wondering how parents struggle with basics of "siiga", I realized that I am no longer that young man learning to use computer programs or trying hard to build a career. I, and my age-mates, are now the parents and grandparents of brides and grooms.

When we were growing up, we learnt the art and science of living, as participant observers in our culture, because we lived with our parents and grandparents. Our children are today living a different life, growing up in nuclear families, without the benefit of that most important school of life - culture. It’s a void that could be filled by encouraging them to read, under the guidance of a good teacher, such books of the A-Z of marriage as Sheikh Albani’s "Adaabuz Zifaf" (The Good Manners of Marriage) and many others like them. Learning could be fun, especially if it is done with a purpose and with the right people.