Dowry is property or money brought by a bride to her husband on their marriage, and I think it should be practised, despite many terming it an old tradition. The topic of whether paying dowry is important or not has been a subject of discussion of late on public platforms, and it seems people will still pay it as it was passed by the law.

According to the 2013 Marriage Bill, dowry payment is required to prove a marriage under customary law; the payment of a token amount of dowry shall be sufficient to prove a customary marriage. We have heard of many cases of men refusing to pay dowry after a high price is set by the bride's family. Most families take advantage of this custom to sell off their daughters and, as we speak, there is a shocking story about what happened at a rucacio (dowry paying ceremony) trending on social media.

A man has come out to narrate his first experience at a rucacio, and I kid you not, it was horrible!

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"I have never been to a ruracio before and when an opportunity arose recently when a cousin was getting hitched,I knew I had to tag along.He is a banker and she a workmate from Nyeri.

We had heard of the tough reputation of the Nyeri people in getting the best bride price for their daughters but we were unfazed.

"afterall we are Kisiis not Luos to be taken advantage of easily in such matters ",

We reasoned as

as we reassured ourselves and picked some of the most seasoned brideprice negotiators in the highlands.

We were set.We knew that the Nyerians had met their match as the Kisiis are equally as skilful in wringing a million shillings or so for their daughters.

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From Kisii to Nyeri is quite a journey and as our convoy of several vehicles eased into Nyeri town,it was approaching 3pm.Asking for directions and getting lost a few times and we arrive at 5pm to find the gate to the compound of our in laws securely locked...

We hooted and knocked at the gate for a while before some young man came and told us that we were way too late.

We were expected at 1pm and now it was late for such an elaborate ceremony.We had better settled in town till the following day.

We panicked as we were aware that our delegation was too big to hire hotel rooms.And so we asked him what we could do to make the ceremony go on.

The young man,who must have been the brother to the bride must have heard the anxiety in our voices told us the gate could be opened if we gave out 50k.

We were greatly relieved and knew that we could spend more than that were we to spend in town and then start the ceremony afresh the following day and so the 50k was given out quickly to the young man.

We were ushered into a large hall where food was prepared and ready for us in our seats.The problem was it was Mokimo and anyone familiar with the Kisii community will tell you that our people prefer ugali,lakini hii viazi and sijui what was food for babies.

As courtesy will have had us,we could not refuse food offered to us by our in laws,we tried eating the food and when we were through with the eating almost everyone had leftover s in their plates as frankly,mokimo is pathetic food and I almost pitied my cousin cos if that was the food he was going to be fed on in his marriage,then he was not going to have weight problems.Then I was mystified a bit when I saw the women collecting the left overs counting the plates loudly in English.

"1 plate,2 plates,3plates...."

till the last plate with leftovers number 53!.

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Then a mzee came forward.He congratulated us for having made to the occasion.However,there was a snag.According to the Agikuyu traditions,ruracio guests aren't meant to leave leftovers as the fine is 10k a plate.

We were horrified cos 10k multiplied by 53 plates and we were already talking of a staggering 530k!.We had set our target at 250k at most,and now we had already doubled the brideprice before even we had started bargaining for the cows.

We wanted to withdraw from that negotiations as the family was surely using underhand means but the young man we had come to pick a wife for would hear none of it.He had prepared himself with adequate brown bahashas from a bank loan.

By the time we were being told of mandatory 99 goats by the Agikuyu culture,we knew we had properly been beaten hands down,and our negotiators were only left to haggle about the prices of goats.From 7k a goat,we settled at 5k a goat and it was a million plus!."