DOI: 10.36347/sjahss.2022.v10i09.002

Pages: 407-412

The Obudu Community of Northern part of Cross River State is made of ten political wards with about five languages spoken with dialectal differences. The people are very friendly and richly blessed with an enviable traditional marriage system which this paper chooses to x-ray regarding the way culture and tradition influences it. The paper also examines the socio-economic implications on the less privileged since marriage, they say, is the beginning of a legitimate family in all societies of the world and certain rules are established in order to specify unions that can be called marriage and those that cannot for whatever. The society stipulates what right becomes legitimate and therefore desirable and appropriate but in some situations, certain persons may challenge or oppose the existing marriage norms by going into unions or alliances that are contrary to natural rules and law of decency and societal norms of proper enculturation. This is not because of their will but due to the huge cost which culture and tradition imposes on mankind. The society is a complex whole of belief, art, moral, law, customs as well as the total way of life of the people. The practice by the Obudu people degenerates to delay in marriages, unwanted pregnancies, abortion, as a result of the huge economic implications involved. The paper equally examines the political, social and religious practice of the people, traditional marriage and contends that the practice of this nature should be reformed so as to reduce excess cost as well as other social, political and religious vices that bedevil the practice of traditional marriage among the Obudu People.