Analysis of Marriage Rites

Marriage Firewood collected. The bride and her age mates aided by the groom and his age mates collect yam poles for firewood in farms of her parents and their friends. Visit to bride&s;s parents&s; yam stack; to obtain about ten sticks of yams for the marriage feasts to follow kekpopam, the clitoridectomy rite. The yams are displayed in the parents&s; houses. Bride&s;s friends demand marriage money and when it is brought they hand it to the father who makes them a gift. The most remarkable feature of the Yako marriage ceremonial is the emphasis on the relations of the chief participants to their age mates and the lack of emphasis on their relations to either kinship groups or particular circles of kinsmen. Neither the matrilineal nor the patrilineal kin of the bride or of the groom are as social groups concerned in the marriage rituals.