Proverbs 12:4: “A wife of a noble character is her husband’s crown, but a disgraceful wife is like decay in his bones.”

These are a few other scriptures about marriage: Genesis 2:22-24, Proverbs 5:18-19, Proverbs 12:4, Proverbs 18:22. Please read them for education and information purposes. ‘Ceremonial marriage,’ as the title implies, has become ‘a fashion’ that unfortunately has come to stay.

Now, first let me give the dictionary definition of marriage. MARRIAGE: The legally or formally recognized union of a man and a woman. According to the above definition, marriage is when the laws of the land and/or particular jurisdiction recognize two adults (man and woman) formally agreeing and accepting them to be husband and wife. Brethren, with this background information, we don’t necessarily need to spend so much on rites; either wedding or engagement. It is not to say, if one can afford a high-class wedding, you should not do it. It has become so obvious that parents-in-law and often the prospective bride make so much demand on the husband-to-be, at the expense of their future. They start their marriage life with a lot of debts to pay.

Parents-in-law and the bride-to-be focus so much on the ceremony, the display of power and affluence, changing clothes on the wedding day by the bride, getting all the flower girls, page boys, etc. A wedding or engagement day, of course, should be a happy day for the husband and wife-to-be and the rest of the family including friends. Ceremonial marriage is really tearing families apart looking at the current level of divorce cases in our courts, after a few months or years of marriage resulting in broken homes. With children becoming victims, with no good parenting, some get involved in all kinds of social vices like prostitution, drug addiction, and some unfortunately end up as mental patients and armed robbers. This, to a large extent, affects society and the world at large. Most of these religious extremists and terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda, etc., who seem to be in ‘control’ destroying the peace around the world are as a result of no love because mummy and daddy were not there to train them, while growing up.

With this bitterness and pain in them, they decide to unjustly extend their anger to the vulnerable and the innocent in society. Women and children suffer more in this instance.

When a young man falls in love and proposes marriage to his partner, instead of the bride-to-be and her parents making things easy for this prospective bridegroom, they see it as an opportunity to make money at all costs from this young man.

The young man, as the bridegroom-to-be, because of the love for the wife-to-be, is given a long list of items for engagements. Demands are made by the wife-to-be and the parents also want a high-class wedding ceremony.

Sadly, modern marriage rites have become ‘capital intensive’ and now become a thing for the rich and affluent in society, not the one who is in love and has a good character. Thus, some of these young men ignore these warning signs and still go ahead to marry their women.