It is the norm both in the traditional and modern African communities that any man who intends to marry must pay dowry for the woman he wants to spend the rest of his life with.
The case is however different for Pastor T. Mwangi of the Life Church International Limuru who believes that paying dowry is a form of slavery.
In a conversation with Dr. King’ori, the pastor noted that dowry is among the things that should be done away with because Africans are currently civilized.
“The concept of dowry is slavery. You buy a person, you pay money in the name of slavery. You go back to our culture a woman would not go back home so when we look back at some of the tenets of Africanism and look at where we are going in our socialism there are things that we automatically look at and say this is backwardness,” Mwangi said.
The pastor is married and has a daughter whom he says he will not exchange for goats and money.
“I have a daughter, I can’t sell my daughter. My daughter is so expensive that the 99 goats that were given can not be exchanged for my daughter. This is now the essence of academia,” he said.
Asked on how his in-laws agreed him to take away their daughter without paying dowry, Pastor T. said, “I told them the value of my wife is the blood of Jesus and that blood can not be compared to anything. I told them I came to honor the parents, the Bible and even culture encourages to honor parents, there is obedience, respect and honor. You obey and respect because of rank but you honor with substance.”
“They brought some elders but I told them where I come from is a kingdom and in this kingdom we don’t buy people. This is propagation of slavery we don’t do that. This is my wife, my partner created in the image of God,” he added.
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