With Women Proposing Marriage These Days, Who Should Pay The ‘Dowry’?

Today, we find ourselves torn between tradition and civilisation. While
some would like to move away from the ways of the past and forget
practices like the payment of dowry when they seek to wed, others feel
that it is necessary to retain some aspects of the gone days and
honour their to be in-laws with a token of gratitude. I don’t have a
problem with payment of dowry (apart from the exorbitant prices
some families charge because the man/woman is based ‘abroad’)
Many people delay getting married, fearing that they may be unable to
pay the exorbitant bride price (because it seems the prices are never
stagnant, it keeps rising higher and higher). The payment of dowry is
something which I don’t see being abolished in many years to come
but as things are changing and moving in reverse order, that
department should also be changed and moved in reverse order.
I was on a shopping expedition with a friend purchasing his ‘long list’
of items required by the family of his wife-to-be and it was a very
exhausting list. With all the textile manufacturing factories in Ghana,
they preferred ‘Holland/English’ wax prints, sewing machine, (man
suffer) etc. etc. I just understood why many mothers get frustrated
when their daughters are not settling down because there is money to
be made in the ‘engagement’ industry.
He turned to me and said jokingly “But…., why should I be buying the
items and pay the dowry when it was the lady who proposed
marriage? After pausing a while, he continued “…. . Even if a woman
should pay the dowry, that is handing power over to her because the
man should always be the head of the family.” I said he’s got a point
because men are expected to propose marriage to women but if the
women have taken up the baton of doing that, they can just as well
pay the dowry. As to the subject of losing power to the woman, many
of them are wearing the trousers in their matrimonial homes even
though the man paid everything to the last dime.