Agubalu Uchechukwu

Lagos, Nigeria

We Define Our Culture, Not Defined By Our Culture

As I exchanged wedding vows with him on my wedding day, the 14th day of July, tears streamed down my cheeks knowing that not a single member of my family attended the occasion. I was hoping to play the tough girl that I wasn’t, but I am only now experiencing difficulty holding up.

The past two weeks record the most dreaded moments of my life. My parents and I fought like cats and dogs, as though determined to tear each other apart for the single reason that I could never marry a man who was non-Nigerian.

To me, marriage was a union between two individuals basking in the euphoria of love and mutual understanding, irrespective of ethnicity, but to my parents it was the coming together of two individuals who shared the same cultural heritage. They said it aided understanding.

I am torn between worlds; the world of accepting my parent’s verdict, and losing the man I love, or follow my man and lose the family I love because his nationality does not say “Nigerian”.

But aren’t they forgetting that we are stronger in our differences? Aren’t they forgetting that intermingling breeds diversity? Interculturality is like salt upon the earth’s surface, to help different individuals and cultures understand one another, find strength in collaboration, and add a savory taste to earth, rather than remain static due to separatism on the basis of cultural differences.