A Study of the Yoruba Traditional Marriage as a Rite of Passage

Abstract

This study observes marriage as a rite of passage and identifies the symbolic communicative elements deployed in the Yoruba traditional marriage processes to ease the transition of a bride from one status to another. It particularly examines the signification of its linguistic elements as transition vehicle that convey the bride through the pre liminal, liminal and post liminal stages of her rite of passage. The study adopts qualitative research technique to critically analyse and interpret the linguistic (lexical/verbal words, phrases, and sentences) and non-linguistics (non-verbal pictorials, facial expressions, emotions) elements in the music drama deployed as semiotics resources in this work from the social and cultural semiotics perspectives. The study concludes that the identified linguistic and non-linguistic elements of the drama music used as data in this work are the Yoruba semiotics resources, which their imports give physical and psychological strength to a bride, in the marriage’s rite of passage.