LESSONS FROM MIYANDA AND MEENDA’S WEDDING
By Alexander Nkosi
There are important lessons from today’s wedding for the first daughter. It was an open wedding, no invitation cards. Nothing extravagant but the couple walked away with a fortune, a very good financial starter pack with a lot of cattle from members of Naminwe and surrounding communities. The couple can build from what they got today without depending on parents. This is basically the way we used to live back in the days.
I stayed in Bweengwa constituency from 1987 to 2003 and attended a lot of these traditional marriage ceremonies. A man would have built a house and started cultivating his own field before getting married. Some would have been given cattle already as part of training in wealth management as they grow up. During traditional weddings the couple would get more animals and other donations. There was unity and that way the community took care of the new couple.
Fast forward, with civilisation in towns, we now have so many couples start their marriage life with negative bank accounts because they get loans to fund weddings. Instead of settling down and enjoying their marriages, they spend their early years in heavy debt. This makes it hard for them to settle down early and invest for the future as marriage comes with increased responsibilities. Others end up divorcing.
The other important lesson is that traditional weddings are simple and beautiful. Let us keep our culture alive. Unlike this emerging trend where our chilanga mulilo and weddings are full of Nigerians dances and attires we don’t even understand.
Congratulations to Miyanda and Meenda!