Thanks to time, exposure, technology, and a lot of borrowing from the western culture, we get to live free and safe, devoid of cultural restraints and some adhered to cultural beliefs.
Some women would be married off to some very old wealthy chief in a nearby village, or even heavily pregnant with child number ten. As for men, some would turn their homes into an arena of domestic violence, and some would be having so many concubines to last them a lifetime.
Thank the gods, things have changed. We are free people roaming the world, doing what we love, and there are less demanding cultural practices to bar us from achieving our dreams. Here are some of the malicious cultural practices that have been abandoned with time thanks to technology and social media.
1.Female Genital Mutilation( FGM)
In the name of keeping virgins, girls were cut and stitched to protect them from fornication and pregnancies. Most girls bled to death some took forever to heal. With time people learnt that this practice was malicious and they have stood strongly against it.
2.Widow Inheritance.
When your husband passes on and leaves you behind with the kids, some cultures required that you must be married off to his younger brother or his uncle because you are a property that belongs to the family. All too often one could not fight back. As at now, people are free to make their own choice, be a widow or get married to someone you love out of that family.
3.Polygamy
Men were free to marry as many women as they could and still have concubines around the village. The more women and children the man had the higher his status in the society. As at now, men find it too old school to have many women. They love to stick to one and have two-three kids, cause times are hard and big families are hard to maintain in this era
4. Forced Marriages
As soon as a girl hit puberty she was married off to some old rich grandfather without her consent who would pay a handsome dowry to the family to keep them going. At this era, girls have right to education, way marriages are not so common and the society is feeling the impact of educating the woman.
5. Son preference.
Back in time men thought if girls as weak and a bad sign, as they preferred sons for inheritance and family protection. They would go to an extent of marrying a second and third wife just to have sons. As at now, a boy or a girl for a child does not really matter.
6.Wife battering.
Women held very low positions in the society. They were supposed to be humble and submissive to their husbands. Any form of rebellion invited a thorough beating or a fierce domestic violence. Men and women of today get to solve matters in better ways, seeking professional guidance and help.
7.Weird burial ceremonies
The dead were feared so much that bore very creepy practices while sending them off to the next world. Some tribes would bury their leaders with their bodies facing the homestead. Others would bury them with their wealth and belongings. Today the dead are granted a peaceful and decent send-off.
8. Bullfighting and wrestling
This was and is still common among the Luhya community. Betting on bulls, alcohol, women a little drunken fight. If bullfighting interests you, check out all the current PBR events and more online.
9. Night running
Someone gets possessed by spirits and they go running around at night, hitting on peoples doors and throwing sand in their iron sheets at night scaring the shit out of people. Today people have better things to do than run around naked at night.
10. Traditional circumcision ceremonies.
You be moving up and about the village in almost no clothes, going to the river early in the morning, the cold biting your skin to bathe and smear your body with the sand. You strip naked in front of a crowd and get cut raw together with a group of boys your age, and no one was to shed a tear in the name of bravery. And the village is chanting your name. But people grew up, people go to hospitals nowadays as they find it safer and less involving.
