| Popis: |
For many decades, Western Scholars have defined and described the African traditional beliefs, institutions and practices in terms contrary to their own faiths and experiences. Early missionaries, explorers, and other foreign investigators branded the religious practices and the traditional institutions of the African peoples in such unacceptable and derogatory terms as animism, paganism, heathenism and fetishism. Anything that did not come from the "civilised" world was labelled "primitive". Some extremists have even gone so far as to assume that God is a philosophical concept beyond the understanding of the savages. Modern researches based on more thorough sociological, anthropological, linguistic, and theological verifications have demonstrated the inadequacies of the former theories. It is therefore not the purpose of the present study to appraise and signify the weakness of African traditional institutions and practices, but rather to provide the evangelical Christian community with a workable tool for inculturation. Through this study, the researcher has demonstrated that the traditional Yoruba institutions and practices like marriage and family life, can and should serve as a point of contact for a kerygmatic proclamation. We must continue to explore ways to put such cultural information at the disposal of the reflecting minister and faith community, both critically and practically. From this study, we have thus discovered that the pole of cultural information on marriage among the Yoruba thus represents not a realm of unredeemed nature, but a mixed environment, partly antithetical to and partly complementary to Christian life. Thus, this study looks at the traditional Yoruba marriage culture as an institution that has come into contact with the Catholic Christian teachings. Chapter one presents the general introduction of the thesis. The general introduction explains the author's involvement with a group of married Catholic Christians, and consequently, how this study evolved. Flere, we present the research problems, we also list the aims and objectives of the research and the research methodologies employed to meet the objectives. The second chapter presents the background history of the Yoruba people before and after their contact with other cultures, namely, Colonialism and Christian enterprise of the Western nations. Here, some structural organization of the Yoruba people like the kingship and the extended family were thoroughly X-rayed as a way forward towards inculturation. In the third chapter, the thesis examines the notion of marriage practices among the Yoruba and the importance the Yoruba attached to preparation in their traditional setting. It thus takes a critical look at Yoruba marriage traditions, the age-long practices and the changes brought about as the result of their contact with other cultures. The fourth chapter treats the understanding and the development of the Catholic Christian marriage with its theology and teachings on marriage with particular respect to the canonical form. In chapter five, the points of conflict between the traditional Yoruba held tenets on marriage treated in chapter three and the Christian/Western marriage practices treated in chapter four are examined as well as the similarities between the two cultures. Chapter six draws together all the concepts and conclusions that were highlighted in the previous chapters. This helps to chart a path to a distinct proposal and recommendation for the pastoral care of Yoruba Christian families at all levels. Thus, a reflective inculturated Yoruba marriage rite based on a "tripartite coagulation theory" of partnership between the individual, the family (culture) and the Church (Christian tradition) is recommended as the way forward in integrating both cultures. Our recommendation thus suggested at least three postures from which the conversation between the religious tradition and cultural information might begin: (i) the religious tradition challenges the culture; (ii) the religious tradition is challenged by the culture; (iii) the religious tradition uses the resources of the culture in pursuit of its own religious mission. Finally, from the summation of the research stated above, the seventh chapter the entire thesis and proposes specific areas for further research. |
