It did not matter in Erin’s culture whether a man was in love with a woman in order for them to get married. When a man becomes of age to get married, parents and relatives, and sometimes friends would get involved in a ‘wife search’, searching for a perfect and potential wife for him. The qualities that were usually considered in a wife may include but not limited to good manners and beauty, quality of hair and skin tone, pair of legs, nose structure, set of teeth and her smile. A woman’s personality would mostly be based on her mother’s personality as she rides on her mother’s credibility. People would start asking questions concerning the girl, but in most cases no one asked questions about the man as long as he bore the traits and potentials for hard work to acquire wealth in terms of landed property, livestock or money as in the modern terms. Many girls will be listed as potential candidates for marriage for the man, and the list will be narrowed down as their preferences and priorities got checked out. The most important factor in determining the right candidate for marriage was a girl’s ability to reproduce. A girl’s ability to reproduce was judged by how many children her mother gave birth to. Her paternal and maternal grandmother’s reproductive status were checked out too if known. The status of her sisters, female cousins or nieces were checked out also; if they were able to carry their pregnancies to full term, and their ability to have raised their children right. Any trace of divorce in a girls’ lineage would drastically affect her record in the secret examiners’ list. The long list of the possible brides in the village were checked out and thinned down according to the guiding criteria they set up. If everything went right for the lucky girl, Her parents were notified and arrangements were made to begin the traditional marriage ceremonies and rituals.
Erin’s culture required the payment of dowry, a bride price for the girl’s head, paid to the girl’s parents usually in the form of landed property, goats, cattle or money, (hard currency) as in the modern times. Haggling was usually done between the two families until the two parties reached a compromising level of price tag. The negotiation process was done through middle men who knew the business very well and can cut a good deal for the two families. The process of negotiation can delay the marriage ceremonies and can seriously and completely stop a marriage from taking place. Disagreement in dowry, a price tag on a girl’s head, which has the customary powers to stop a marriage from taking place, had absolutely nothing to do with love in Erin’s culture. In her culture, there was no room for elopement. When a girl’s parents rejected a suitor for any reason at all, the girl would patiently wait for another suitor. So many women lived and died without getting married because their fathers rejected their suitors or asked for a very high bride price. Once married used to be forever married in Erin’s culture and divorce was one of the unmentionable words around her village. A husband had the right to reject his wife and send her back to her parents. A husband’s criteria to reject his wife ranged from infidelity, laziness, to bareness. Erin’s tradition supported men to divorce their wives, but women dared not complain about their husbands’ weaknesses. When a man returned his wife to her parents, he would not ask for the bride price to be refunded back to him, but if the wife left on her own, the bride price was to be refunded. The bride price gave the men the right to treat their wives the same way they treat their pieces of property. Women therefore were seen and not heard and they were not trusted with any decision making powers in and around the home.
For a woman to be returned to her parents was to ostracize her for life. She would never be the same person emotionally and she may never have any suitors. So every woman would strive to hang on to whatever her marriage seemed to look like. There were several reasons that women stayed in their never ending abusive marriages in Erin’s culture. There was absolutely no reason or person that could support a woman to leave her husband’s house. Therefore, a woman who left her husband’s house left her family lineage in jeopardy of credibility. She would put a mark of unsteadiness, not steadfast, not trustworthy, unreliability and non-dependability on each and every female child in her lineage. Therefore women would tough their marriages out for the sake of the unborn female children that would come after them. Another reason that women stayed in their abusive marriages was poverty. If their parents were poor and could not refund the bride price to their husbands, she would be encouraged to stay with her husband no matter what happened to her. A barren woman would rather support her husband to get another wife to bear children for him than accuse her husband of infidelity. Men’s infidelity was never placed on trial in Erin’s culture. Men were never tried against their wives for any reason whatsoever. The people who sat at the village square and tried cases which were mainly land disputes were mainly men. Women did not have the right to fair representation at the village square, and so, women did not let their domestic quarrels get to the village square for the fear that they would definitely be on the loosing end.
Infidelity among women was very rare in Erin’s culture. It was not mostly about the respect they accorded their husbands as it was about the institution of marriage that was backed by a tradition that had no place for women. Women taught their female children through the lives that they lived to be faithful wives no matter what it cost them. Children learn what they live, and so women in Erin
