Omo, nobody is paying a bride price for my daughter sha. That tradition of paying bride price never made sense to me as a teenage boy. Today as an adult it still doesn't make any sense.

There are loads of these traditions that don't hold any deep meanings aside the delusions (pardon my language) that we attach to it.

I don't get why we hold on stubbornly to some of them as if they've made our society or our lives any better as a people.

If I pay N1500 as "bride price" for a woman I want to marry, that little money carries loads of symbolism that a "stupid man" can exploit.

For me, it has always been a symbol of ownership. And of course we have lots of "stupid men" that have exploited that symbolism.

The worst of it for me is when the woman's family start factoring in the life achievement of their daughter in setting the bride price.

You'd hear something like "she is a graduate, that is why the bride price is high."And all the hogwash traditional appendages that goes with it

If my daughter will get married, the most important thing is that she loves the man she wants to marry and the man's family makes her feel comfortable.

Then the two families meet to give their "assent" to the marriage of the two prospective couple in a "traditional setting."

The two families can exchange gift as a symbol of "unity." If it is different tribes, we bring things from our cultures that holds deep cultural symbols.

Igbo man bring kolanut or anything you feel like. Me the TIV man bring Yam and something else.

We eat,merry, take pictures

My daughter and her newly wedded husband can decide to take it further with church wedding or "court marriage."

And that is about that. You don't have to pay me some "symbolic money" at all. I don't get why you have to pay me for my daughter eh.

We can't keep forcing ourselves to maintain traditions invented and perfected by hunters who wore figs around their torso.

We must start adapting cultures, identities and meanings that fit into the realities of OUR OWN world. Traditions should serve us, we don't serve tradition

PS: My issue with bride price is not HOW MUCH it is oo. It isn't the money at all. It is the symbolism behind ANY payment (no matter how little) paid to a woman's service as a condition for her getting married TO a man. That is what doesn't make sense to me. Throw it in the trash