Marriage payment and women's autonomy in Africa

Across societies in Africa, the phenomenon of bridewealth is a central component of marriage. Bridewealth performs important and contradictory roles in securing yet complicating various kinds of rights and entitlements for the conjugal couples (Anderson, Reference Anderson2007; Horne et al., Reference Horne, Dodoo and Dodoo2013; Posel & Rudwick, Reference Posel and Rudwick2013). In most patrilineal societies, bridewealth secures dignity, recognition and respect for both the bride and her children in the new family (Shope, Reference Shope2006; Anderson, Reference Anderson2007; Behrends, Reference Behrends2002; Akurugu et al., Reference Akurugu, Domapielle and Jatoe2021). Nonetheless, the practice of bridewealth tends to deepen existing gender inequalities between men and women. For example, the practice draws on patriarchies to further oppress women as well as constraining their autonomy and agency, especially if combined with arranged marriage. Some scholars argue that bridewealth may even be a significant set-back to the achievement of gender equality and women's empowerment (Wendo, Reference Wendo2004; Shope, Reference Shope2006; Horne et al., Reference Horne, Dodoo and Dodoo2013; Dery, Reference Dery2015; Akurugu et al., Reference Akurugu, Domapielle and Jatoe2021).

In recent times, within the context of neoliberal market integration, dwindling natural resources and the monetisation of hitherto uncommercialised resources, the connubial payment has seen modifications, specifically in reduction in quantity across some contexts (Anderson, Reference Anderson2007; Akurugu et al., Reference Akurugu, Domapielle and Jatoe2021). Yet in other contexts, notably urban societies across Africa, the connubial payment has soared. For instance, among the Zulu people of South Africa, Shope (Reference Shope2006) reports a change in payment patterns from cattle to cash as well as modifications in the practice. While acknowledging the significance of the lobolo, bridewealth, Shope noted that the amounts and items associated with the payment have soared over the period. Indeed, many scholars in South Africa have blamed the rising cost of lobolo, which tends to delay or even disincentivise marriage among young people (Posel et al., Reference Posel, Rudwick and Casale2011; Posel & Rudwick, Reference Posel and Rudwick2013). In the face of commercialisation, general integration into the market system and excessive focus on financial gains by the bride's kin and attacks by capitalism and Abrahamic religions, the institution of the bridewealth is enduring (Borgerhoff Mulder, Reference Borgerhoff Mulder1995; Shope, Reference Shope2006). For decades, anthropologists have studied bridewealth and its impact on family ties, productivity and social status. For their part, feminist scholars have been interested in the role of bridewealth in women's reproductive decisions, sexuality, ownership and control of productive resources (Shope, Reference Shope2006; Horne et al., Reference Horne, Dodoo and Dodoo2013; Akurugu, Reference Akurugu, Domapielle and Jatoe2021). These studies point to the subtleties and the diversity that attend the payment.

Anderson (Reference Anderson2007) and Apostolou (Reference Apostolou2008) offer very useful cross-cultural and historical analyses of bridewealth. Anderson (Reference Anderson2007) provides important insights into the existence and extent of marriage payment across diverse socio-economic and historical settings and the transformations that various kinds of conjugal payments – bridewealth (prestations are transferred from the groom's kin to the bride's family), groomprice (payment is transferred from the bride's kin to the groom and his family) and dowry (payment is from the bride's family to her) – have undergone. Based on the cross-cultural analysis, the author notes that the amount of bridewealth in some societies is dependent on the rights transferred at marriage while in others it is constant irrespective of the income levels of the brideprice-paying family. In the case of our study, discussed below, the latter is applicable. In Kenya, for instance, Borgerhoff Mulder (Reference Borgerhoff Mulder1995) shows that the connubial payment depends on the circumstances of the bride, such as being divorced or the number of expected children or the groom's family background. Anderson also draws attention to the paucity of empirical data on this subject matter. The lack of relevant empirical data is reflected in some of the unsettling generalisations and stereotypes that accompany dominant debates on the marriage payment. For instance, Anderson writes: ‘The general pattern seems to be that brideprice exists more frequently in primitive, tribal, and often nomadic societies’ (2007, p. 155). However, the bridewealth practising ethnicities of northern Ghana are likely to be appalled by these unflattering labels. Our analysis departs from these kinds of one-sided statements by anchoring analysis on empirical data.

Anderson also considers economists’ perspectives on bridewealth, drawing on Gary Becker's (Reference Becker1991) marriage market framework described above. Becker deploys the marriage market as a metaphor to explain the processes involved in selecting a marital partner to optimise anticipated well-being. Across rural societies in northern and southern Ghana, the theory of the marriage market is relevant inasmuch as prospective brides and grooms participate in such social activities as funeral ceremonies and on occasion meet their marital partners at these functions. Yet within the context of rural northern Ghana, particularly at the time of Becker's work, the agnatic kin, the paternal relations, of both bride and groom played important roles in selecting mating partners. Indeed, the kinsmen and kinswomen are important stakeholders in sustaining the marriage and we suggest that this atomistic conception of the marital actors that characterises much of the discourses on bridewealth (Apostolou, Reference Apostolou2008; Borgerhoff Mulder, Reference Borgerhoff Mulder1995), attributing agency to the partners/parents only, risks eliding the important role of entire families and communities in the marriage. It is within the understanding of the important role of the extended family in the marriage that we propose the need to draw on the communitarian valence of the ethnicities in northern Ghana encapsulated by the Ubuntu philosophy to negotiate women's rights and eradicate marital violence (Dery & Bawa, Reference Dery and Bawa2019; Akurugu et al., Reference Akurugu, Domapielle and Jatoe2021). As well, the commercialised notion of bridewealth leaves much to be desired as other dynamics such as familial relations are at play, sometimes relegating the economic factors to the background. Among others, Anderson concludes by calling attention to the need for contextually nuanced data to shed further light on the shifts occurring across Africa.

Apostolou (Reference Apostolou2008) focuses on the thorny question of parents choosing suitable mating partners for their daughters. The author provides useful insights into the practice of the marriage payment and highlights evolutionary anthropologists’ perspectives on bridewealth and brideservice as compensations for the lost labour of daughters and/or as ‘honest signalling’ of a son-in-law's wealth and capabilities, enabling parents to assess the suitability of the groom. A summary of explanations for the practice of the marriage payment, as the author discusses, includes compensating for the loss of the bride's labour, guaranteeing respectable treatment for the bride in the marital family and securing legitimacy for the bride and her children in the marital family (Murdock, Reference Murdock1949; Ogbu, Reference Ogbu1978, see also Behrends, Reference Behrends2002; Akurugu et al., Reference Akurugu, Domapielle and Jatoe2021). All of these are relevant to the context of our discussion. For example, while citing Zahavi's (Reference Zahavi1975) theory of honest signalling, Apostolu highlights how bridewealth and brideservice, a form of marriage transaction where services in the form of labour are rendered by the groom as payment for a bride, may serve as a function of testing a prospective son-in-law's suitability. According to Apostolu (2008), certain questions are asked in the process: does he have sufficient resources to support his future family? Is he fully committed to the marriage? Without the marriage payment, it may be challenging for parents to assess suitability in this manner. Thus, removing bridewealth could have detrimental impacts on women. Bridewealth represents an important means by which parents exercise control over the selection of grooms for brides. Similar to Anderson, Apostolou appears to downplay the role of the extended family in mate-matching. Within the context of rural societies in northern Ghana, normatively, the selection of suitable marital partners is a collective responsibility of the extended kin. In these settings, normative institutions rather than the parents are in charge of the bride and groom selection. The focus on the parents in this and many other studies is probably a reflection of the importance of the nuclear family in certain contexts. Yet in contexts where communitarian values are strongly upheld, as in the context of northern Ghana, mate selection is the task of many actors in the family. In the context of northern Ghana, both the bridewealth and brideservice are not executed single-handedly by the prospective groom, but instead by his agnatic kin and peers, respectively. As such, it is not clear to what extent marriage transfers can be said to honestly signal information about the commitment and economic potency of the suitor specifically, as opposed to providing information about his wider kin in many contexts across Africa.

Within the context of Africa, Borgerhoff Mulder's (Reference Borgerhoff Mulder1989, Reference Borgerhoff Mulder1995) study of the Nilotic Kipsigis of Kenya examines bridewealth and women's constrained autonomy from the precolonial to the postcolonial era. The author argues that bridewealth in that setting is determined by women's perceived reproductive and labour value. Thus, early maturing brides attract higher bridewealth. In the past, women in marriage within Kipsigis societies had ‘secured rights’ and ‘considerable autonomy’ in using property that belonged to their husbands (Borgerhoff Mulder, Reference Borgerhoff Mulder1995: 574). Yet the onslaught of colonialism and its oppressive patriarchies contributed to the dispossession of indigenous people of their land and the commercialised production of maize. While displaying African patriarchy, oppressive patriarchies of colonialism have worked in complex ways to empower men and disadvantaged African women. The payment among the Kipsigis is lower in the case of what Borgerhoff Mulder (Reference Borgerhoff Mulder1995: 567) terms ‘problem marriage’, which is a situation where the bride is pregnant or has already had a child prior to the payment. While Borgerhoff Mulder's results are compelling, the true extent to which bridewealth volume can be clearly linked to reproductive and labour value remains unclear. For instance, among the Frafra people, a wealthy woman may marry one or more women for her husband by providing the bridewealth. These women bear children in her name in the event of her being childless or to offer extra labour. This is similar to female husbands among the Igbo in south-eastern Nigeria (Amadiume, Reference Amadiume1987). ‘Female husband’ is a term used by Ifi Amadiume to describe women who were wealthy in Igbo traditional societies and who acquired wives by paying the bridewealth of the women. This payment culturally made the wealthy women husbands to the brides. This woman-to-woman marriage secures social rights to the bride's children and service rather than sexual ones. Explaining the flexible gender system among the Igbo, Amadiume notes that the ‘female husband might give the wife a (male) husband somewhere else and adopt the role of mother to her but claim her services. The wives may also stay with her bearing children in her name’ (Amadiume, Reference Amadiume1987: 42). By being able to control the services of other women, the female husbands accumulated more wealth and status, which further enhanced their social traction and authority vis-à-vis men. Yet the bridewealth is no less than in the case where the bride marries a normative male.

In the context of Ghana, Horne et al. (Reference Horne, Dodoo and Dodoo2013) examine restrictions that the marriage payment exerts on women's autonomy among the Ewe people of the Volta region. The study is revealing in that it draws attention to the limitations that ‘complete’ payment of bridewealth may exercise over women. Using an innovative vignette experiment, whereby participants were asked to consider marital scenarios wherein bridewealth had been not paid or had been partially or fully paid, the authors report that the more the marriage payment is nearing competition, the stronger the normative restrictions on women's reproductive autonomy and the weaker the restrictions on male violence. These authors conclude that the payment of bridewealth strengthens normative constraints on women's autonomy. However, while these results inform us about the consequences of the completeness of bridewealth payments within a specific setting where bridewealth is normative, it does not automatically follow that abolishing bridewealth as an institution itself will reap improvements in women's status. Answering this question requires a more nuanced investigation into how bridewealth as a normative institution interacts with and is embedded with patriarchal norms which subordinate women. Furthermore, the cultural significance of completing a bridewealth payment varies, and as we will argue, in some contexts rituals, rather than payments, may be more important in establishing when and how a women's status has been altered by marriage.

Specifically, in relation to northern Ghana, the findings of Dery and Bawa (Reference Dery and Bawa2019) and Akurugu et al. (Reference Akurugu, Domapielle and Jatoe2021) offered sharp perspectives on the subject matter. Both studies are anchored on the important role of the marriage payment and its resilience amid neoliberal capitalism (see also Borgerhoff Mulder, Reference Borgerhoff Mulder1995). The authors underscore the role of bridewealth as an institution that legitimates marriage. Marriage, and for that matter the payment of bridewealth, enables women in patrilineal contexts to gain new social status in society (Dery & Bawa, Reference Dery and Bawa2019). Against this backdrop, Akurugu et al. highlight the challenges of ill-informed gender advocacy that is premised on undoing the revered institution of the marriage payment, pointing out the dangers of such an enterprise. According to Akurugu et al. both the women in Dagaaba settings, the primary case study of our perspective piece, who bear the brunt of the marriage payment, including normalised violence and subordinate social positioning, and the men who derive patriarchal dividends such as control over women's productivity are opposed to undoing the institution of the bridewealth. This opposition is because the bridewealth secures legitimacy for both the woman in marriage and her children. Consequently, in its absence, the women risk losing the already tenuous position in the marital family. Yet the gender activists, mostly urban based educated women and clergymen, continue to advocate the undoing of this institution. Akurugu et al. conclude that women's rights advocacy should be sensitive to local norms and contextual dynamics in their efforts to ‘liberate’ the oppressed victims of patriarchal norms in northern Ghana. This article dialogues with and extends the argument offered by Akurugu et al. by incorporating the Ubuntu philosophy as an important means to draw on the communitarian features of African societies to negotiate women's rights and to undo marital violence in culturally appropriate manner.

The analysis so far highlights the diversity that characterises the practice of the connubial payment across settings in Africa. Bridewealth is an important practice, bringing respect, honour and legitimacy to the bride and groom and their kin. The exact amount of the marriage payment is contingent upon contextual factors. Yet the discourses seem to privilege the role of the parents and marital couples, eliding the complex network of relations that characterises marriage across rural settings in Africa. Most of the discourses, cross-cultural as they are, mean that contextual specificities are not always dealt with sufficiently. This article contributes to the literature in this field (Anderson, Reference Anderson2007) by bringing it together and engaging with ethnographic data in north-western Ghana in a way that enriches understanding of the practice of bridewealth and how it constrains women's autonomy. We argue that although the marriage payment may be perceived as the source of women's subordination, normalised violence, constrained autonomy and a setback to achieving gender equality, to undo the institution is to further worsen women's already tenuous social positioning in the marital family and to compromise on the legitimacy of the children in that union. In place of the colonising undoing, we turn to the communitarian philosophy of Ubuntu, prevalent across rural societies in Africa as an important space for negotiating women's rights and gender equality.

Ubuntu, an African humanist philosophy, highlights communitarianism – understanding the individual within the context of community – across African societies. According to Desmond Tutu, to say someone has Ubuntu is to acknowledge that ‘you are generous, you are hospitable, you are friendly and caring and compassionate. You share what you have. It is to say. “My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up in yours”’ (Tutu, Reference Tutu1999: 31). Ubuntu highlights the spirit of interdependence and incompleteness of the human person and this is encapsulated by the Zulu aphorism that: Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu, a person is a person through other persons. The notion of a person becoming a person through other persons is replete across Ghanaian cultures including among the Dagaaba people, and this underscores the importance of interdependence. Ubuntu thus is about collectivity, being with others and seeing yourself as belonging to a larger society. This philosophy of interdependence enables African people to resolve social problems, including marital disputes by dealing with their problems in a positive manner, by relying on the inherent humanistic values that are embedded in African cosmology and forms of sociality (Nabudere, Reference Nabudere2005). Ubuntu offers potential to build on pervasive strong communitarian values and solidarity that is inherent in most rural communities across Africa (Tamale, Reference Tamale2020) in order to resolve gender-based violence against women in ways that are culturally sensitive. By invoking the philosophy of Ubuntu, indigenous systems such as the traditional courts could be strengthened to appropriately resolve disputes, including marital ones without abolishing bridewealth.

Dedication rituals and the transfer of marriage payment

Prior to the transfer of the cowries to the bride's agnatic kin, the male elders of the groom's family take a few of the cowries to the kpeezaga, mentioned above, where dedication sacrifices are performed to commit the prospective bride under the protection of the ancestors, and to ask for blessings, especially children for the marriage. The dedication ritual is performed before the marriage payment. Following the dedication, the cowries are transferred by male members of the groom, led by the dendeo, to the bride's agnatic kin, and once accepted, the marriage union is legitimately formed. It is, however, important to note the changing trend these days, that some brides and grooms live together and bear children before brideprice is paid. The dedication ritual has been referred to as the ‘ratification of the slavery of the woman’ by Dery (Reference Dery2013: 11) as it exercises great control over the bride's autonomy. Informed by inheritance arrangement, the bridewealth secures rights over the woman, her sexuality, labour and children for the man and his agnatic kin. The sacrifice prohibits the bride from having sex with another man; multiple mating is thus prohibited for the woman. Any woman who breaks this taboo is considered to have desecrated the marriage and has to be cleansed of the contagion.

Similarly, among the Frafra of north-eastern Ghana (the first author's natal ethnic identity), the marriage payment comprises mostly of four cows, a red cock called nu-nua, marriage fowl, a smock and local gin. The cows may be paid all in one go or in instalments. Among the Frafra, it is the payment of the red cock that legitimates the marriage. Once the fowl has been accepted, both families of the bride and groom recognise the marriage as a valid one. Yet before the fowl is accepted, in most cases some or all the cows will have to be paid. A Frafra bride who sleeps with another man, irrespective of the circumstance, is also believed to have defiled the marriage and thus requires purification. The payment exerts normative control over the bride's life.

Within the context of the Dagaaba, the dedication ritual and the subsequent payment exercise normative constraints on the woman. Similarly, among the Frafra people, the bridewealth together with cultural expectations of docility exercise enormous restrictions on the autonomy of women. Hence, the institution of the payment and the accompanying social expectations, rather than finalising the marriage payment as reported by Horne et al. (Reference Horne, Dodoo and Dodoo2013) or the number of rights transferred at marriage (Borgerhoff Mulder, Reference Borgerhoff Mulder1995), constitute normative constraints to women in northern Ghana. Based on the constraints that the marriage payment exercises on women, some activists advocate the undoing of the institution (see Akurugu et al., Reference Akurugu, Domapielle and Jatoe2021). However, all over the world women are oppressed in diverse ways. Indeed, even in settlements across Ghana where bridewealth is very small or not applicable, women are still oppressed. This is well illustrated by considering the Builsa people of northern Ghana.

Similar to other African ethnicities (see Borgerhoff Mulder, Reference Borgerhoff Mulder1989), the marriage process of the Builsa is complex, involving several stages, payments and rituals. According to our research participants, bridewealth as described in the anthropological literature does not apply to Builsa marriage practices. Indeed, in an interview, one research participant explained that; ‘I wouldn't call them payments but rituals’. Yet two important rituals that legitimate a Builsa marriage are akaayale le o boro, meaning ‘seek not, she is there (with us)’ and the nansuing ligka, closing the gate (Adiita, Reference Adiita2011: 26). The akaayale comprises cola nuts, tobacco and a small amount of money for performing rituals. Wanitzek (Reference Wanitzck, van Rouveroy van Nieuwaal and Zips1998) estimated the cash at 4 pesewas (less than $0.01). The akaayale follows the abduction of the bride, the customarily most common way of marrying. This ritual, often performed three to four days after the abduction, seals the marriage. The nansuing ligka rites finalise the marriage. During abduction, it is believed that the groom opened the bride's house entrance and the nansuing ligka symbolically brings a closure to it. It is made up of an animal – fowl, goat or sheep, a hoe blade and tobacco (Adiita, Reference Adiita2011). Among the Builsa, although women are in subjection to men, the ownership of the woman is not transferred to the husband and his kin as reported in the anthropological material (Lévi-Strauss, Reference Lévi-Strauss1969). A research participant explained: ‘the rites do not give the husband and his family the right to own the woman’. Reacting to views among the Frafra and Dagaaba that the bridewealth is a driver of violence against women, the participant explained:

The Builsa bride thus seems to have more autonomy as compared with others and our participants attribute this leverage to the absence of the bridewealth. Yet she occupies a subordinate position vis-à-vis her male folks. We also see the important role of the family/community in sustaining the marriage, which tends to be neglected in the discourses on bridewealth. Among the Builsa people, there is no marriage payment, although women's autonomy and control over decision-making power are no less limited as compared with men, and this is the case for many ethnicities across northern Ghana and across bridewealth-practising settings in Africa.

Within the context of the ethnicities under consideration here, the marriage payment completes the marriage process. The woman now becomes a legitimate member of the marital family; women whose bridewealth has not been paid are not considered properly married (see also Behrends, Reference Behrends2002; Dery & Akurugu, Reference Dery and Akurugu2021). Subsequently, control over the woman is transferred from her agnatic kin to her husband's kin. The bride has no control over the products of her labour on the farm because they are a dↄↄ kunkure boma, proceeds of the man's hoe. This arrangement, the transfer of control and authority over women, has negative implications for women's autonomy; they are required to obtain permission from their ‘owners’ in all instances before taking any major decision. Those who do not comply with this normative requirement are thought of as behaving as though they owned themselves, submitting to no man's authority. In the Dagaaba settings such women are often called pog gandaba (singular-pog gandoa). Over the years, the meanings of pog gandoa have been contested. In one respect, it is interpreted to mean the antithesis of respectable femininity. A pog gandoa embodies assertive qualities (see Akurugu, Reference Akurugu2020 for a detailed discussion). Nevertheless, the bride does not belong fully to her new family as a non-lineage member; her loyalty cannot be trusted since she might one day leave. She is, however, the deԑ pↄge, the woman of the house, in charge of the day-to-day management and funeral rituals in the community.

The bridewealth of the Dagaaba and Frafra departs from the practice of the Kipsigis of Kenya, where it is one-off and non-refundable (Borgerhoff Mulder, Reference Borgerhoff Mulder1995). Secondly, it differs from that described by Horne et al. (Reference Horne, Dodoo and Dodoo2013), examined earlier. The focus of Horne et al. on the relationship between bridewealth and women's reproductive autonomy is restrictive and elides bigger issues such as the way in which the marriage payment exercises control over the entirety of a woman's life and creates subordinate positions for women in the marital family. Yet these scholars claim that ‘the theory is applicable to communities in which bridewealth is practiced’ (Horne et al. Reference Horne, Dodoo and Dodoo2013: 508). The broad-based approach without references to specific bridewealth-practising settings is less useful. The discussion here shows that the marriage payment unites families and communities since it is a group rather than the individual couple's affair as reported elsewhere.

‘Woman is nin-baala, weak person’: bridewealth and constrained autonomy

Among the ethnicities under consideration, the bridewealth is an enduring institution. Customarily, it is impossible to complete the marriage payment as it spans over time and even on occasion outlives the marriage (see also Shope, Reference Shope2006). In fact, according to most of the men we interviewed, one can never complete the marriage payment, as noted by an elderly participant in Serekpere: ‘you can never complete payment of the bridewealth’. This is because it is a bargaining process and even when a bride's kinsmen agree to her prospective husband's proposal of the number of cowries to pay for her, and accept it, they still remind them of an outstanding payment. This is to emphasise that the bride is worth more than any amount of money. Our research participants articulated the symbolic gesture of the bridewealth as a token to strengthen bonds between the two families (see Radcliffe-Brown & Forde, Reference Radcliffe-Brown and Forde1987; Kpiebaya, Reference Kpiebaya1991). Kpiebaya (Reference Kpiebaya1991: 11), writing about the Dagaaba people, underscores that the payment is not an ‘outright purchase’ of the bride as her family retains the right to take her away from an abusive marriage. In addition to this, the bride does not lose all of her rights in the natal settlement; older daughters have ritual roles to play during funeral rites (see Figure 2). Nonetheless, in everyday discourse, women and men across the study areas refer to women in marriage as having been purchased, and thus being subordinate. For instance, a family head in Serekpere, pointing to his first wife, explained that:

Figure 2. Daughters and wives of Serekpere, cooking ritual meals during final funeral rites.

In his view, no man would be willing to return the bridewealth of such an old woman and this means that the payment bonds her perpetually to the marital family. This perspective of the clan head encapsulates the views of our research participants regarding the constraints of the marriage payment. The women often described a woman in marriage as a nin-baala, weak, person. In terms of women's social positioning relative to men, a women's group leader from the community explained that: ‘no money has been paid for a man in marriage and this is why a woman in marriage cannot compare herself to the men. The man is the owner of the house; he is a chief whereas the woman has been bought with the bridewealth.’ Another woman, a first wife who had been abandoned by her husband in the marital village, recounting the difficulties that staying in the marital family brings to her, explained that, ‘if you were not a nin-baala you would not leave your father's house and come to another person's house’. She concluded that ‘unless a woman recognises her nin-baala position and humbles herself she will not be able to live with a husband and his family’. The identity of the woman in marriage is often framed as pↄge yԑŋ nin baala na (‘woman is a weak person’). Thus, we can see the role of the marriage payment and the virilocal residential pattern in creating subordinate identities, and in constraining women's autonomy.

Despite the connection between bridewealth and constrained women's autonomy, the idea of abolishing the marriage payment was consistently rejected throughout our interviews across different ethnicities in northern Ghana. For our research participants, without the bridewealth there will be no marriage and the legitimacy of the bride and her children stand threatened in the marital family. Behrends (Reference Behrends2002) and Akurugu et al. (Reference Akurugu, Domapielle and Jatoe2021) both highlight the challenges that ‘free’ marriage, marrying out brides without the bridewealth, engendered for the women and their children in north-western Ghana. The ‘free’ wives and their children were not recognised as legitimate members of the new family. Consequently, rather than unshackling the woman in marriage, ending the practice of bridewealth will further worsen her already vulnerable position. Across many contexts in Africa, the bridewealth is similarly revered, securing various kinds of entitlements and social status for women in marriage (Borgerhoff Mulder, Reference Borgerhoff Mulder1995; Shope, Reference Shope2006). Returning to the honest signalling theory discussed earlier, as the bridewealth and brideservice are culturally the responsibility of the groom's agnatic kin (although in recent times where families lack common pull resources designated for this purpose grooms contribute to it), signalling the communitarian valence of marriage in the study context, the payment provides information about the mate's kin as opposed to honestly signalling the suitability, potentials or otherwise of the groom. Indeed, within the context of this study, there is no customarily recognised marriage in the absence of the marriage payment and rituals. From analysis here, undoing the bridewealth is critically constrained as a means of liberating women from oppressive gender norms. In the concluding section below, we reflect on the potential of invoking the strong communitarian values as encapsulated by the Ubuntu philosophy and indigenous norms as important sites for negotiating women's rights in settings across Africa.