Marriage in African Traditional Society

espousal in African Traditional guildMarriage is an important step in the life of e precise gentle homos gentle valet de chambre on earth. Different cultures have different rituals and beliefs about marriage. Love, economic status, phantasmal beliefs, and kind acceptance are just a few reasons individuals tie across differing cultures.To view various convention of marriages among the Kenyan societies and specific each(prenominal)y the Akamba, we shall calculate at length the carcasss of marriages that existed.Kenyan culture is very diverse and encompassing of tradition based on complaisant norms that have been around for generations. neighborly life is patterned around a strong clan and extensive family ties. This plays a vital role in the marriage process. Kenyans attempt to maximize rewards and minimize costs. This is done by comparing what one go bads up compared to what they recover in marriage. A maintain may receive social status, familiar enhancement, incre ased roil, and the know guidege that his blood-line bequeath continue, while giving up or so sort of economic compensation to the family of the wife. The wife may receive resources, self-aggrandising status as a wife, and protection in return for her labor and obedience to her married man.Marriage is a recognized union of a composition and a womanhood as husband and wife, a union that is intend to last their joint lives. Mutisya(2004) cites a case of Rex vs Amkeyo, the then Chief Justice, Sir Robert Hamilton, that verbaliseIn my opinion, the use of the word marriage to describe the relationship entered into by an African domestic with a woman of his tribe according to tribal custom is a misnomer that has led in the past to a substantial confusion of ideas the element of a so-called marriage by native custom differs so materially from the ordinary accepted idea of what constitutes a civilized form of marriage that it is difficult to compare the two.However, in the African mind, it is considered as a serious affair and one that demands high commitment. on that point are no half-measures in Akamba marriages. A man who engages in equivocal marital relationships is a mutuanya, a vagabond despised by everyone in the community. Likewise, a woman without a proper husband is referred to as a mukoma nthi, one who sleeps on the floor, a person of no fixed abode.Among the Akamba, a virgin bride brought shame to her family her virginity was an indication of ill preparation in the first confide marriage, therefrom young women were ritually deflowered by elder men from whom they received informal teachings. In the same vein, pre-marital sex was permitted for both boys and girls to prepare them adequately for their conjugal responsibilities in marriage. Among the Akamba, marriage had the specific purpose of perpetuating ones lineage and in the process, beatowing social status on the man and his wife.When a boy and girl came to a secret agreement that they w ere in love and wanted to marry, upon agreement, the young mans drive would approach the girls parents on the matter. This was followed by the first sign of sealing an in-law relationship uthoni with two goats mbui sya ntheo. The young suitor then prepared the best beer uki, which was taken to the girls pay back, followed by a negotiation on the bride-wealth.The Akamba wed woman was more or less the head of the family in the long run, since the husband had little control over her in the day to day management. If such(prenominal) a detacheddom to manage the home was absent, the husband had the danger of his wife becoming exasperated and running away. At all costs, the husband had to debar such situations of a wife running back to her parents, because he would decidedly not recover the dowry he gave to her parents, which could however happen if his motive wife re-married. In the case of re-marriage, the new husband was obliged to repayment the entire dowry paid to the former h usband. In the final abridgment what this system did was to reduce exceedingly the number of disjoin cases.The Akamba men were socialise to worship physical power fighting, cattle raiding, and so on. The women maintained a closely guarded culture of oppression in which men were excluded from all intellectual activities. The mens only tasks were to raid cattle and guard the community. When they were not doing that, they were allowed to miss their time drinking beer or socializing.They were excluded from all creative activities where thought and tactfulness would have been necessary. In deed, fifty-fifty in worshiping Mulungu the Akamba God, the men were excluded. The women had their own thoroughly organized religion called Kathambi. Their goddess, Kathambi, is the goddess of rain and fertility. The women associated rain and fertility with womanhood. And since men dont give birth or menstruate, they were deemed incapable of communicating with Mulungu. The congregation of Kath ambi worshiping women was called Ngolano and the congregation was led by woman priestesses (who had stopped menstruating and giving birth) in shrines called mathembo, composed of compendious forests or huge trees.Ghost Wives (Mulewa)Mulewa Muthiani goes about her business just give vexation any opposite widowed woman in her hamlet in Ukambani. But there is one difference betwixt her and normal widows Mulewa neer met her husband. In fact, she was married to him after he died, about 30 eld ago.Mulewa is what is referred to in Ukambani as a tinge wife. And while she never get up eyes on Muthiani, her husband, she knows for a fact that he once lived, and even if now long dead, he continues to live as a mettle. This she knows because when she was existence married, her mother in-law, Muthoni who died in 1992 told her that she was being married to stomach children for Muthonis son, Muthiani, who died in untimely childhood. Yes, she has children five in fact who were fat hered by different men and who bear her dead husbands name. Stanely Kimanga.It was considered highly important for every Akamba man to be married because it was his wife and children that would guarantee keeping his memory beyond his devastation. If an Akamba man died before marriage, the father arranged to bring a wife (Mulewa) for the dead son. such(prenominal) a girl was married to the name of the dead unmarried man and bore him children, usually by his brother (cf. Middleton, p. 90).In 1967 C. W .Hobley wrote in Bantu Beliefs and MagicThere is a curious custom in Ukambani If a young unmarried man is killed away from his village, his Imu or spirit up will return there and speak to the people through the median(a) of an old woman in a dance and say I am so-and- so speaking, and I want a wife. The youths father will then make arrangements to buy a girl from another village and bring her to his, and she will be mentioned as the wife of the deceased, speaking of him by nameAmong the Akamba, a woman could be married to a man who was long dead and such a woman was called Mulewa ghost wife. Athough the ghost wife never met her husband, she knew he once lived and continued to live as a spirit. Mulewa was therefore expected to bear children for her dead husband by sleeping with other men.The ghost wife cultural practice in like manner catered for male children who died in infancy. The bereaved mother counted the years until the dead flub would have reached marriageable age, then she would find him a bride.Before a girl was identified to be a ghost wife, there had to be evidence that she had already produced a son. The continuation of the dead mans lineage and that of his father was of prime importance. Even if daughters remained at home and produced children, they were not perceived as continuing the lineage of their maternal grandfather because kinship in the Akamba community was patrilineal and the children of daughters would not belong to the same clan as their grandfather.A ghost wife was accorded the privileges of a normal wife and her discipline of inheritance was protected and she received what her dead husband would have received from his parents.Woman-to-Woman Marriage (Iweto)The practice of women marrying women is fewwhat common in certain societies in due west Africa, Southern Africa, East Africa, and the Sudan. Yet, besides a total lack of countersign in the popular media, what is typically called woman-woman marriage is the subject of a very small body of academic literature.Cross-culturally, women take wives under three circumstances, all of which increase the status of the female husband 1) barren women and widows take wives to discover even transfers over children produced 2) rich women accumulate wives to gain prestige and wealth in the same way men do through polygyny and 3) in some societies where women have the right to have a daughter-in-law, women without sons can exercise their right to a daughter-in-law b y marrying a woman and giving her to a non-existent son.In each of these situations, African women are able to manipulate the existing system through woman-to-woman marriage in order to achieve higher social and economic status.Woman-to-woman marriage can also be beneficial to persons other than the female husband. Woman-to-woman marriage involves the following persons 1) the female husband herself 2) if the female husband is already married, her own husband (the female husbands husband) 3) the woman who is married by the female husband the wife and 4) the lover(s) of the wife who may father her children. To start out a full understanding of the topic, it is important to examine the motivations not only of the wife, solely also those of the wifes lover(s) and the husband (if any) of the female husband.The Akamba practiced woman-to-woman marriage (Gynegamy) cognise as Iweto All ceremonial aspects of this marriage were observed, bride-wealth was paid to the girls father, and all ru les of divorce applicable in the Akamba community were adhered to. This marriage involved one woman marrying another woman, thus assuming control over her and her offspring.The Akamba female husbands resorted to this form of marriage to further their social and economic positions in society. Barren women and widows took wives to obtain rights over children produced. Rich Akamba women accumulated wives to gain prestige and wealth in the same way men do through polygamy. The Akamba women who had no sons exercised their right to a daughter-in-law by marrying a woman and giving her to a non-existent son.The Akamba allowed a woman who had no sons to marry another woman. This was usually after widowhood, entirely could also be during the husbands lifetime. The bride worked for and looked after the aged(a) woman she had married but was free to choose male partners as she pleased, since the purpose for her union with the elderly woman was to have sons. Any children born belonged to the fa mily group, and the sons would inherit the property.Among the Akamba it was and still is the wifes tariff to provide food for the family from the family cultivated land. The wife could ask for divorce if the diagram of land was too small and the husband refused to negotiate a larger piece of land (cf. Penwill, pp. 15-18).Christian view of both types of MarriagesIn handed-down thinking, ancestors are an essential link in a hierarchical mountain range of powers stretching from this world to the spirit world. Insofar as African tralatitious religion can be defined by specific apparitional actions, the cult of the ancestors is its most common and essential activity.In order to understand the importance of ancestors one must realize that in the African view, death is not thought to end human relationships. Rather, those who die enter the spirit world in which they are invisible.Deceased ancestors are integral to the tralatitious African social structure. In a culture where tribe, clan and family are of utmost importance, ancestors are the most respected members of the family. To be cut off from relationships with ones ancestors is to cease to be a whole person. Moreover, the ancestors sanction societys customs, norms and ethics. Without them, Africans are go away without moral guidelines or motivation, and society is powerless to enforce ethics.However, the bible is agnize on when should a union between a woman and a man end, in case of the ghost marriages. A wife is jump as long as her husband lives but if her husband is dead, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord.( 1st Corithians 739).This outlaws the familiarity in matrimony between the dead and the alive. It also cautions against tokenism where one worships a dead person. It is through Christ that all that have died will skip again.However, woman to woman marriages of Ukambbani are not same with lesbianism. It was a place to take care of each other and involved no or little sexual intimacy.Christian teachings prohibit marriage and sexual activities between same genders but encourage people to take good care of each other. ( 1st John 316). It was love that guided these relationships.References CitedCadigan, R. jean (1998), Woman-to-woman marriage practices and benefits in Sub-Saharan Africa. Comparative Perspectives on Black Family Life. diary of Comparative Family Studies, vol 1Dundas, C. (1913), History of Kitui, Journal of Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol 43 pp480-549.Kimanga, S. (6 October 2004), The ghost wives of Ukambani, All Africa impudentlys, http//allafrica.com/stories/200410060072.html, Accessed 18th July 2010Lindblom, G., (1969.) The Akamba in British East Africa, second Edition, New York Negro University Press.Middleton, J. (1953), The Central Tribes of the North-Eastern Bantu, London International African Institute.New International Version, Holy BiblePenwill, D.J., (1951), Kamba Customary Law, London Macmillan and Company.Roy M,M . (2004), Akamba Marriage Customs. capital of Kenya Roma Publishers Limited.Mueni, E. (2010) Personal interview (0726 43-0331)Terry, M. (2010) Personal Interview (0721- 738524)