Marriage II - Types of Marriages

Generally,two types of marriages are practised: nguøand üsa’a. Üsa’a mangyie is a type of marriage without formality, in which a woman cohabits with a man who wishes to take her as a wife. The payment ofbride wealth is done later, if it is ever done at all. This type of marriage isrelatively recent, dating from the colonial and postcolonial periods – in otherwords, from the collapse of the authority exercised by the lineages and the destruction of the pre-colonial traditions.

Otherwise, the pre-colonial society only recognized the nguø system of marriage – that is, marriage by matrimonial compensation, which is still practised today. This works thus: the father ofthe suitor or, at times, his paternal uncle, pays a courtesy visit to thefather of the woman he wants to marry, taking along a calabash of raffia wine.This of course is only a request visit, which takes place when all is certain about the character of the woman to be married into the family.

The suitor’s father then explains the purpose of his visit. As required by tradition, he will normally express himself using figurative language – as anexample: “The purpose of my visit is to inform you that I have seen a banana inyour compound that I would like to harvest.”

The woman’s father will normally drink the wine and tell the suitor’s father to give him some time to reflect over the issue. During this period, the woman’s parents also carry out their own investigations into the family of the suitor, given that the qualities for a good husband are as essential to the woman’s father as those of the woman are to the man’s father. Normally, when the man’s father declares his intentions to the man who may become his in-law, the latter informs the woman’s mother and his close agnates. A period of consultation ollows, involving the patrilineage of the father, the matrilineage of the mother and a certain number of important people, such as the maternal uncle of the father and that of the woman. The repudiation of the latter is enough to end the negotiations.

If no impediments exist, the man’s father is sent for, and the marriage negotiations begin. Usually, the amount of bride wealth a man receives for his daughter isexpected to be commensurate to that which he paid for the woman’s mother. Before the engagement proper, the woman’s father asks his daughter’s suitors for his ‘confidential bag’ (abœ münangor abœ tüngkon), which consists of raffia wine (mülu’u) and money (nkabø); only the woman’s and the man’s fathers know about this. If the woman’s father is satisfied with the bag, he asks for formal negotiations to begin.

The üsa’a system of marriage – marriage by elopement – is also of two types. in his book ‘Marriage and Kinship among the Mankon’, A.N. Monikang says, of the first type of elopement: “the whole marriage process is short and complicated. What happened in this form of elopement was that the eloper secretly took his bride into hiding. As soon as the high tension within the woman’s family was low, the eloper reported himself to the woman’s parents. Accordingly, bride wealth was demanded and in addition a fine for breaking traditional norms was imposed on the eloper. As soon as everything was paid the strain between the two families would be lessened and a good relationship would be established.”

Monikang goes on about the second form ofelopement: it “was the least practised in those days, but it seems to begaining ground today. All formal steps in marriage were omitted, with exception of a small party that was given by the groom to few friends and kin. As in the first, a fine was imposed on the eloper for a breach of the tradition and bride wealth accordingly demanded.”