By Stephen Asante
Accra, May 18, GNA– Inter-ethnic marriages among Ghana’s elite, including several former presidents, have played a key role in consolidating national social cohesion, Prof. Samuel Agyei-Mensah of the University of Ghana said on Tuesday.
The trend, he said, was exemplary compared to other African nations and showed Ghanaians’ ability to overcome cultural differences in marriage.
“I think some of our Heads of State have shown the way,” the Professor of Population and Medical Geography, said, citing President John Mahama and former Presidents Jerry John Rawlings, John Agyekum Kufuor, Prof. John Evans Atta Mills, and Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, who married spouses from other ethnic groups.
Prof. Agyei-Mensah was speaking to the Ghana News Agency after presenting a paper on “Interracial and Interethnic Marriages in Accra” at the Annual Lecture in the Arts 2026, organised by the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences.
The lecture addressed four research questions on interethnic marriage patterns: why some ethnic groups were less likely to intermarry; what distinguished those groups; whether a spatial pattern existed at the neighbourhood level; and how it could be explained.
“The key findings are that culturally more cohesive groups were less likely to intermarry than less cohesive groups, and that there was a tendency for intergroup marriage to be undertaken by elite members of a group,” he said.
Scholarship on interracial and interethnic marriages in African societies has largely been qualitative, he noted. The limited quantitative literature consists mostly of country-level data analyses.
The lecture aimed to renew interest in the topic by offering both a historical perspective from the precolonial period and a quantitative analysis of interethnic marriages in Accra at the start of the 21st century.
It examined the implications of these marriages for identity, migration, urbanisation, and social change in contemporary Ghana.
Historically, inter-ethnic marriages have been shaped by cultural similarities, geographical proximity, and social interaction. While many groups traditionally preferred endogamous marriages, modernisation, urbanisation, and increased mobility have encouraged intermarriages.
Prof. Agyei-Mensah said inter-ethnic marriages continued to evolve, with social media breaking traditional barriers and reshaping cultural norms.
“The younger generation are becoming more exposed to each other and interact freely outside their traditional domains and communities,” he said. “Social media could play a role where some of these rigid traditional systems break down, and parents would not have control of their children.”
Citing the 2021 Population and Housing Census, he said modern trends showed a gradual shift toward greater diversity in marital unions. As Ghana modernises through education, technology, and urbanisation, inter-ethnic marriage is expected to continue evolving.
Inter-ethnic marriages, he added, reflected the country’s cultural diversity and acceptance, though they also bring challenges such as inheritance issues and misconceptions.
GNA
Reporter: Stephen Asante
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Edited by Samuel Osei-Frempong