HOW TO HANDLE CHALLENGES OF INTER-TRIBAL MARRIAGES
-Bisi Adewale
There is nothing bad about inter-tribal or inter-racial marriages provided you know how to handle its challenges.Not knowing how to handle these challenges can spell doom on the marriage. The following points will help you out: HOW TO HANDLE CHALLENGES OF INTER-TRIBAL MARRIAGES
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- Study the Culture of your Spouse. Take your time to study the culture of the person you are about to marry perfectly before you go into marriage. Adequate knowledge of the culture will help you to settle down as one.
- Pray about it. Ask God for wisdom to handle the differences in tribes. Ask for patience, wisdom, humility and grace to build a successful home despite the differences.HOW TO HANDLE CHALLENGES OF INTER-TRIBAL MARRIAGES
- Marry your Culture. If your inter-tribal marriage must be all right, don’t just marry your spouse, please, marry the culture. Fall in love with the culture, accept it, never go against it. Never speak wrongly about people from that tribe, see them as the best people in the world; because they produced your spouse.
- Never think your tribe is the best. No tribe is the best, only God is the best. So stop the childish thinking that your tribe is the best and other tribes are bad.
- Eat the food. Don’t just eat the food from your tribe; learn how to eat the food from the tribe of your spouse. Wives must learn how to cook the food from your husband’s tribe. The way they normally cook it if you must enjoy a good relationship with your spouse.
- Be patient with each other. Since you are coming from two totally different backgrounds, please be patient with each other as God is working on you to understand and love each other.
- Learn the language. You will do your marriage a great deal of favour if you try to learn the language of your spouse, at least learn the one they use for greetings, it will help your marriage.
- Accept the tribe. Accept everything about your spouse’s tribe. Say it, show it to your spouse.HOW TO HANDLE CHALLENGES OF INTER-TRIBAL MARRIAGES
9.Let your children enjoy both cultures. A pastor friend of mine, a Yoruba man, got married to an Ibo woman, they had two children, the first child was given
a Yoruba name while the second child was given an Ibo name; this is good. In their house, they cook both Yoruba and Ibo food. They dress like Ibo and Yoruba, no wonder they are enjoying a blissful marriage despite being from different tribes.
10.Let there be adjustments. You will need to adjust to fit into your spouse’s culture, food, lifestyle, etc while your spouse must also make efforts to adjust without being forced.
11.Communicate effectively. Effective communication is needed in inter-tribal marriages. Talk, talk and talk. Please talk deeply about your cultures, explain to each other what things mean. Open up to each other, talk to each other, don’t talk at each other. Effective communication will help you to understand the tribe of your spouse inside-out.
