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Because of the much importance placed on the marriage institution, the power to arrange for marriage is in the hands of the parents. Indeed this had been the old age custom world wide as revealed by Fairchild (1944), in: “the power to arrange for bethrotals remained in the hands of the parents from ancient to modern times”. In the olden days, a boy or girl must have fully-grown to maturity before the parents could think of having a wife or husband for him or her respectively. When a boy has grown to a real man relations-parents and even the aunt, would take it upon themselves as a responsibility to look for a beautiful girl for their son. When a beautifully grown up girl is spotted, the boy might be asked to go and see her. Once that happened, the boy was expected to obey without questioning. Before going to such length, the parents of the boy must have critically and carefully studied the girl in question, for the Bassa maintain definite norms about selection and definition of who is an eligible spouse. This includes the relationship between the two families; the normal standard of the spouse and her family. |