This rite is a must for the groom and his family during a Yoruba traditional wedding.
It’s a culture that inculcates respect and dignity over affluence. That is a moment where the groom and everyone with him shows deep and total respect for the wife’s family. The groom and his friends must prostrate (with nose to the ground, hands spread flat as well) in the open to his in-laws and other members of the bride’s family. They’ll do it a number of times, to show gratitude, respect and humility to the bride’s family.
In return, the family accepts his “respect offering” then signal that they should stand up, after-which they shower on him prayers of blessings, goodwill, grace, strength required to be the head of the home and conjugal bliss. He then proceeds to sit in-between (on their legs)his in-laws as one of their own.
With this, the wife-to-be retains the bragging rights to say, “I am a babe, a jewel of inestimable value. You begged with everything you had, you humbled yourself, and you begged my parents along with all your loved ones to have me as your wife.”
The man and his friends must do it as a confirmation that he didn’t buy off the lady or her parents, He begged and humbled himself alongside his family members to have her.
The other interesting part of this is: this particular moment is never done in the presence of the bride-to-be, it’s done before she’s ushered in. So in a way, it looks after the man’s ego too.
Can you see that our culture is beautiful, and we are not out of place when we regard it as the best in the world?
Peoplesmind