Dowry payment should be constitutionalized!
By Amer Mayen Dhieu, Brisbane, Australia
February 10, 2016 (SSB) — There is nothing more feminine than honoring a woman. Any act that shows appreciation to womanhood is promotable. Talking of a place where feminism should be preached more, one can think of communities where parochial social norms dehumanize women.
However, if the table could turn around for one to critically look into some of these degrading social norms and strictly weigh and analyze them, a feminist like me would madly go for an opportunity that customarily avails itself.
In South Sudan, for instance, socioeconomic disparity between men and women in opportunities is alarming for the reason that the cause of inequality is not only brought about by men being aggressively dominant but also by women being passively doormats. This, in itself, places women in an extreme situation where one can no longer picture light at the end of the dark tunnel.
Since men are the ones with more and better opportunities in the newly independent state of South Sudan, there is one customary opportunity given to women which men cannot take away; that is, paying bride price for women they have chosen to marry. Negatively, people assume this is more, and by far, a contributing factor to the increase of sexist behavior from men.
But how and why? How could one dehumanize and degrade a person he has expend all his youth-hood working in order to legally have her in his life? I see bride price as the only way men must know the true worth of women.
For this reason, I have deep respect and admiration for those men in our society who have acquiesced in dignified silence to the dramatic increase of the bride price, especially in the current economic crisis in our beloved nation.
There is more positivity in paying dowries than one can preach. Dowry payment is the only opportunity given to women by customary law and the only prospect that is non-negotiable. Surely, it should be constitutionalized.
For dear brothers that have not yet find the courage to do so, may the constitutionalization of this practice ring the alarm bell. You cannot just sit with someone else daughter as if you were ovarized by the same egg.
Come on, your sister has agreed to be forever your other half and that, verily, need special and more legal agreement than you can ever imagine. If that include must negotiation fee of seventy thousand dollars only and seventy cows more, then so be it.
You need a lawyer to win the case and the legal practice says you must pay the lawyer. Calling it a slave or barter trade, is a clear manifestation of mediocrity. You are not buying her, you are only paying negotiation fee sir.
You can reach the author via her email: Amer Mayen Dhieu <mayendhieu90@gmail.com>
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