Arranged Marriage: Change or Persistence? Illustrative Cases of Nigerians in the USA

Abstract

It is common for parents/families in traditional settings, whether in Africa or China, to pair their children/members in marriage often without their consent. This specific mate selection practice, arrangement, is used to designate marriages in these settings: the so-called arranged marriages. Observations about this mate selection practice are then posited as conclusive evidence of change in these marriages. This paper attempts an exploratory clarification of marriages in traditional Africa in two ways. First, it uses the marriage system of the Okrikans to reveal that arranged and non-arranged marriages coexist, each administered by and organized around distinct institutions, with differing consequences for family membership, inheritance and other important issues. Second, it breaks down traditional marriage into it components, and using cases to illustrate each, shows that the purported change coexists with persistence. The resistance observed with our case also seems to point to a dynamic in the immigrant/homeland interchange that has not been adequately explored.