Bravo Acholi leaders on lowering bride price
A dance troupe performs the Acholi Otole war dance during a cultural festival in Gulu Municipality in 2018. Such dances often accompany the Acholi traditional marriages. PHOTO/FILE/COURTESY/URN
What you need to know:
- Their son, Okot P’Bitek ,would have raised his hat to this, since he eloquently wrote about the economic strain of bride price on young couples wishing to marry, in his novel White Teeth.
I refer to the article about the Acholi by-law on bride price by Polycap Kalokwera, in Daily Monitor of April 14.
Acholi cultural leaders are to be applauded for passing a by-law on bride price limiting it to not more than Shs5m.
Their son, Okot P’Bitek ,would have raised his hat to this, since he eloquently wrote about the economic strain of bride price on young couples wishing to marry, in his novel White Teeth.
Limiting bride price is not new. The colonial administration passed several by-laws regulating bride price in an effort to curb excesses – Bukedi (1950) Teso (1959) Bugisu and Sebei (1960).
Bishop Joseph Kiwanuka of Masaka famously passed a decree in the early 60s restricting bride price to Shs120 for his Catholic followers when fathers were demanding exorbitant sums of bride price in-order to buy “piki pikis” which were then new and popular.
His foresightedness has enabled Buganda to maintain mutwalo or Shs10,000 signifiying a specified sum of money as bride price which helped to maintain some semblance of culture, although even that has now become commercialised.
The Acholi by-law is progressive but, like the Supreme Court ruling that abolished bride price refund in the MIFUMI decision (2015), it is conservative and only yields incremental progress because it still reinforces the payment of bride price and therefore the sale of women.
Bride price payment equates women to property and subjects them to domestic violence and mistreatment. What we need is a bold and brave by-law that will halt the commoditisation of women once and for all and set women free rather than attach a price tag to them.
Dr Atuki Turner,
Executive director
MIFUMI
