Culture is defined as the total way of life of people or groups of people, it entails a whole lot of things such as value, custom, belief, dressing, languages, food, greetings etc and it describes how people live.
Every culture in the world has its own specific norms that must be followed precisely and anyone who fails to carry out some custom among his or her kindred are most times treated like an outcast.
Sometimes when I hear about the customs and traditions of some people, I'm always amazed why their ancestors would implement such awful cultural ethics but in all, what that might not be regarded in my culture will be the most important tradition in another man's culture. I believe one man's food is another man's poison.
Gone are the days in Nigeria when everyone respects their culture and value it like their life, we all follow it divinely and no one dares to neglect their historical cultural believe. But when civilization creeped into our society, we lot our value and started imitating others.
Although, civilization has really helped to give answers to several of our problems and it has also helped in educating both young and old in our respective countries but it has affected the survival of the various cultural norms in Nigeria.
In terms of respect, there has been a wide range of difference in the way people respect themselves in the olden days and today. Everyone nowadays just wants to be arrogant and bossy, respect has become a thing of the past all thanks to civilization.
In my tribe (Yoruba), to show a deserving respect to the elderly ones, tradition demands that the elderly ones should be greeted by the younger ones by either prostrating (for male) or kneeling down (by female) to show a sign of respect. But the reverse is the case nowadays, handshake and hugging is now the new ways we greet each other, some people even dodge one another all because they don't want to say hi to themselves.
Also our marriage rites have also been tampered with, separation and divorce in Marriage is considered a taboo in our cultural norms in the olden days. But nowadays, people celebrate their marital failure like they've won a major tournament of the world.
Some people have even made the decision never to be married to anyone but they prefer to cohabit with their partners and have children for each other without the payment of their dowry. They just want to have their kids and leave their partner at their own convenience. This is prohibited in our cultural believe but it has been the norms that's on rampage in the world today.
There are lots of evolutions that have happened to our cultural norms which have led us astray, it's a pity that our value as a society has been tampered with. I believe if our lost cultural ethics are being brought back, the society will be a better place to live. Our respective homes and lives will be more improved and people will truly learn their cultures in details.
This post is my entry to InLeo monthly initiative day 10, if you are interested you can click this Link to check the instructions.
Thank you!
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cultural norms are changed now. It's really good to read about your tribal respect norms. Your words gave knowledge about your country's and tribal tradition and norms but now civilization agenda erased cultural values of many societies.
Civilization had really dealt with almost all our cultural norms. Thanks for visiting