West Africa is part of the African continents comprising of different countries with diverse tribes and cultures. These countries include Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, Gambia, Senegal, etc.
Some of these west African countries contain tribes that carryout unusual form of marriages as part of their customs, traditions, norms or religion.
The three tribes in West Africa that carry out unusual form of marriage include:
This tribe practice a form of marriage called Sharo festival marriage where suitors of the bride flog each other severely. The suitor who can withstand the pains from the flogging without surrendering is joined to the bride. The bride is handed over to him as a wife.
Also, they also practice child marriage where young teenage girls are given out by their parents to an adult male for marriage.
2. Becheve: This is a small tribe in Obanliku Local Government Area in the southeren part of Nigeria, Cross Rivers State. This tribe practice an unusual form of marriage called Moneymarriage. In this form of marriage, young teenage girls are married out to adult men to settle debts of their parents. These young girls used for this pattern of marriage are called money women or money wives.
They remain with their husbands until death and are transferred to his lineage via inheritance.
3. Hausa: This tribe is found in some west Africa countries including northern Nigeria, Ghana, Sudan, Niger, etc. They predominantly speak hausa language and are basically farmers and business people. They also practice a weird form of marriage called child marriage, where girls are handed for marriage at early stages of womanhood.
However, the practice of this unusual form of marriage in some west African countries has greatly reduced as a result of government policies forbidding the practice of such act.
In Nigeria, the government enacted the “Child Rights Acts” in 2003 to guide against such cultural practices.
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