: A Desirable Role of the Church in Marriage!

For some time now, two social events in Ghana have largely taken on this erroneous form that my bohemian spirit cannot and will never be able to adapt to nor tolerate. I’m known to do things my way and that is because I see it as my duty to expose ignorance whenever I’m confronted with it. And even though I don’t hope to overcome ignorance entirely, I believe it is to a degree, correctable. But what shall we do if we take ignorance to be knowledge and this knowledge, consequently, becomes fashion (pop culture) of the day? The Ghanaian mind has become closed on the social events of funeral and marriage ceremonies. I don't even know which one annoys me the more and/or is beyond my intelligence to understand: the extravagance (absurdity, expenditure) displayed at Ghanaian funerals or wedding ceremonies. And these traditionally, were meant to be carried out as simple social/family events.

In Ghana, all you need to do to become a superstar with all the attention of a community dedicated to you, is to become a corpse. A dead person in Ghana brings more honor and wealth to the family than the living souls. Have someone die in the family and you could secure any amount of loan from any financial institute. But a different case arises when the same person is sick or when a child needs to be put through school. Why care about living souls appears to be the philosophy of the day! But more on this in another writing.

This writing will attempt to do two things; to assess the role of the church when it comes to marriage and the lack of clarity between engagement and wedding in Ghana. The later is due to the word engagement acquiring a new meaning in Ghana’s own version of the English language. The confusion coupled with ignorance have created an uncritical destructive social expectation that continues to get hold on people’s mind accepting that it is imperative they join the competition of “wedding of the year marathon,” preferably inside a church, proceeded by fanciful receptions, as if a national prize were at stake.

The English dictionary defines engagement as a situation whereby two people (usually in a confined audience) agree and plan to marry in the future- i.e., a promise to marry. And wedding, after a period of courtship, accordingly, is defined as the corresponding ceremony that marks the public realization of the aforementioned intention-- the number of witnesses is quite irrelevant here. Based on these definitions, what most Ghanaians call engagement actually equals to wedding. And what we actually call wedding is nothing but a second unnecessary marriage ceremony.

When it comes to marriage ceremonies themselves, the significance of marriage union and vows have been relegated to the background, resulting to marriage events becoming more and more of visual and amusing presentation. If a fraction of the time, energy and money that goes into planning marriage ceremonies, could be devoted to preparing the minds of the parties involved to face the challenges of the journey ahead in actualizing harmonious relationships, without completely eliminating the troubles of marriage, I do believe the chaos and misery of modern marriage could be minimized. I believe this whole confusion began with the church taking over marital issues.

Traditionally, marriage ceremonies should have nothing to do with the church. Disturbingly, some churches require their members to marry inside a church building in order to have the marriage recognized or sanctified- as if Ghanaians did not marry thousands of years before the introduction of Christianity. In the eyes of God- if you do not mind- our traditional marriage (engagement) is equally as acceptable as the ceremony that takes place inside the church building. Two people who opt not marry in the church and/or without the presence of a privileged representative of a church couldn't be seen as fornicators in the eyes of God, let alone by society.

The church ceremony (wedding) is a product of the Western style of marriage, imported by the church, and now, a residue of colonization, if not another element of the new form of self-imposed cultural imperialism---which by the way, is losing grounds at its home of origin. No wonder divorce rate in the church is higher than those performed in the traditional setting.. It took so much to break up a marriage union that was done and initiated in our traditional manner. This is because our elders saw marriage as a lifetime journey that had to be cemented on proven values and not to be merely consummated if the parties involved were active members of a certain religious organization or adherents of some church creeds or simply qualified because they put a show of false humility and hypocrisy at a church setting.

Our traditional way of marrying is, in my view, more elegant than what the church offers. Don't get me wrong, I don’t have anything against the social or theological functions of the church but marriage is simply not their domain. If the parties involved desire the presence of a cleric to honor the occasion, s/he is certainly welcomed to be a guest at the marriage ceremony but the church should be silent on what form the occasion should take or who is allowed to marry whom. Becoming a member of a particular church does not substitute the family of the said person.

Admittedly, the church has a role to play in preparing the mind of their members to marry wisely. The church leaders can contribute to the well-being of our society by sharing their wisdom with their members. Their duty is to instruct their members that the essence of a good marriage is respect for each other’s personality combined with that deep intimacy, physical, mental and spiritual commitment, which makes a nurturing and growth oriented love between man and woman the most fructifying of all human experience. But that is where their function stops! If they feed their congregations with sound doctrines,, they need not have to worry about their members making wrong choices.

I personally think it is absurd to marry twice (engagement and wedding). When you find that person whom you long to give happiness, comfort, protection- if possible, wealth, it is absolutely irrelevant where the families of both parties witness the lovers in question gaze into each other’s eyes and in a delightful manner agree to become husband and wife. And how reasonable and rejoicing if this simple occasion doesn’t cost a fortunate! We should make up our mind to have either or but not both. For the sake and lack of space, I presented my case purposely leaving out the financial burden on the marrying couples courtesy of this vanity fair.

For the sake of the happiness and security of the prospective children likely to come out of these unions, those who go through the traditional ceremonies (engagements) could be encouraged to register their unions with the State. This step would make our traditional marriages legally binding and thus, eliminate the superfluity of an additional church ceremony.

Dominic Mensah