Former presidential aide Reno Omokri has stirred controversy with his latest remarks on marriage customs, declaring that only virgins should be considered worthy of a bride price.
According to him, any monetary demand made for a non-virgin under the guise of bride price is nothing short of extortion.
Omokri aired his views in a detailed post on Sunday via his official X handle, where he sought to clarify what he described as widespread misconceptions about dowry and bride price in African culture.
“There is a huge difference between a dowry and a bride price.
“However, in this part of the world (Sub-Saharan Africa), we often use the terms interchangeably — but they are not the same.
“A dowry is the money and property given to a female child on her wedding day by her parents, which she takes to her husband’s home. It becomes the joint property of both the husband and the wife.
“Dowry is practised in parts of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. This practice aligns with the Biblical injunction that a wife is a helper to her husband, not a burden — Genesis 2:18”, his post partly read.
He went on to distinguish dowry from bride price, which he argued historically applied only to virgins within both African traditions and Jewish law.
“A bride price, on the other hand, is different. In African culture, as well as in Jewish tradition and law, a bride price is the money or property given by a man to the family of a virgin woman to marry her. This is backed by Exodus 22:17, which states: ‘If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he must still pay the bride-price for virgins.’ Similarly, among the Lukumi Yoruba, if the bride’s virginity is not confirmed on the white cloth (aso funfun) after the marriage is consummated, the marriage is not considered valid, and the bride price is returned,” he continued.
He criticised the trend of monetising marriage rites even when the woman is not a virgin, calling it culturally and scripturally wrong.
“The excessive demand for money and property by some Sub-Saharan African ethnicities for a woman who is not a virgin is neither legally nor technically a bride price — it is extortion.”
Drawing from scripture, Omokri asserted that the Bible reserves the term “bride” exclusively for virgins.
“Scripturally, the term ‘bride’ is never used for a woman who is not a virgin. For example, Isaiah 62:5 says: ‘For as a young man marries a virgin, so your sons shall marry you; and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so your God will rejoice over you.’
“Also, Jeremiah 2:32 reads: ‘Can a virgin forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire?’ These verses show that bridehood is synonymous with virginity. Song of Solomon 4:12 is even more explicit: ‘A locked up garden is my sister, my bride; a locked up spring, a sealed fountain’”, he explained.
He cited biblical examples to strengthen his claim that bride price was only paid for virgins, pointing to the marriages of David.
“By African tradition and Scriptural law, a man may marry a woman who is not a virgin — but such a woman is not a bride, and no bride price should be paid for her. For instance, 1 Samuel 18:20-27 records that David paid a bride price for King Saul’s daughter, Michal. However, he did not pay any bride price for Abigail, as seen in 1 Samuel 25:40-42.”
Omokri warned that abandoning traditional and scriptural values would lead to continued societal decline.
“If we in Africa do not return to these time-honoured traditions and continue the moral decline in our society — where sex and sensuality are left unchecked — we will remain at the bottom rung of global development, plagued by high rates of sexually transmitted diseases and broken homes.”
In closing, he denounced white weddings as foreign to African culture and even misrepresented in African society today.
“Lastly, the White wedding is not African culture, and it is not a Christian wedding. It is a European traditional wedding. If we must adopt that tradition, then we should follow it accurately. In Europe, where the custom originates, it is not the groom or his family that pays for the wedding. It is traditionally the bride’s father who foots the bill. Industrial Money Obtainers, I hope you have heard?”
