Vocal politician and Youth and Gender Chief Administrative Secretary(CAS) Rachel Shebesh on Saturday, October 30 held a colourful traditional wedding ceremony at her parent's home in Githunguri where she marked her completion of marriage rites.
The ceremony dubbed 'Ngurario' is one of the most important events in Kikuyu customary wedding rites. It celebrates the completion of dowry payments to make her an upstanding woman in society.
The rite is also recognised as the proper Kikuyu wedding but instead of the cakes which dominate modern European weddings, the event involves the bride cutting a piece of meat from a lamb's shoulder known as Gutinia Kiande.
The CAS, who is married to Frank Shebesh, remarked that she was fully married in the Luhya community but her husband acknowledges her Kikuyu background hence the holding of the ceremony.
"I have been married for 24 years, I have children and grandchildren, and I am 100 per cent married in the Abaluhya community, but my husband appreciates my background and appreciates my family, that is why we are holding this event," she stated in an interview with a local tv station.
Kikuyu traditions stipulate that after the completion of marriage rites, she is then able to accept dowry from her daughters' suitors.
Her husband was also tasked with finding his wife in a group of covered women, as part of the marriage rites.
She went on to serve him porridge symbolizing her duties as a wife to him.
According to Kikuyu elders, this was the ideal Kikuyu wedding in their culture before westernization and christianity was introduced, and the payment of the dowry symbolized that the union was true and final.
During the ceremony, the moderator explained the different parts of the slaughtered goat as symbols of the different parts of their union to the witnesses, as a crucial part of the ceremony.
The auspicious event saw the attendance of notable guests including nominated MP Maina Kamanda, newly-sworn-in nominated Senator Ngugi IG, CASs Anne Nyaga (Agriculture), Mercy Mwangangi (Health), among others.
Kamanda stated that Shebesh's new status in society was well deserved and that traditional practices should be upheld. He continued to wish them the best in their married life.
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