The 2nd stage
of a Swazi "traditional" wedding (as distinct from a church or
"white" wedding, or a civil wedding, which until recently would not
allow polygamy[i])
took place on Saturday at our homestead, when the bride's family arrived for
the symbolic delivery of her pots and plates to her new home, the groom's
homestead where they now live, and where the negotiation for lobola, the bride price, occurred. This event is steeped in tradition and
expectation, so we had conferred with various friends and family members to try
to understand it, but there were still surprises, and areas where practices
differ, or we are still not clear.
I think this whole process offers many
helpful ideas for our readers back home, especially families with marriageable
daughters; the marriage consulting service we plan to start when we return
will providemuch-needed assistance, reasonable terms, and I anticipate being able to help arrange for
transport of the cows.
The bride's
family had planned to arrive by 11 Saturday morning. This is Swaziland; they arrived around 2 in a
pickup truck and some cars. Everyone
jumped out and the women began dancing and singing various traditional
songs. I remain puzzled that, in this
devoutly evangelical country, the songs sung at traditional ceremonies are
never hymns and seem to make no mention of religion; a short prayer at a break
in the negotiations was the only nod to religion I detected. But in schools and meetings of every sort,
including with government officials, the meeting begins and ends with a
prayer. And it seems frequently prayer
is the only action item addressing a lot of agenda items.
The context of
this event must have arisen as the aftermath of a rape, which seems to be the
way a "bride" was traditionally acquired; that was replicated at the
first step back in early December, with
the "bride" being awakened by surprise before dawn and taken to the
family kraal, to see there the
4-footed wealth of the family into which she was to marry. Now the bride's family has come demanding
recompense, and they are welcomed and placated by the groom's family, who must
pay.
The
bride's family was shown to the nicest house on the homestead, a rondaval (round house replicating in cinder
block and tiled roof the round thatched-roof huts of an earlier day),like nearly
all of the 7 sleeping huts consisting of one room[ii],
where they danced and sang some more,
and where they were
shortly joined by the groom's family, who welcomed the bride's family
profusely; the bride's family reciprocated.
There were also calming and, I think, welcoming speeches by various
older representatives of each family, to which the other family would murmur
appreciation and assent, but neither the bride nor the groom ever spoke
publicly. The many children who had come
along peered through the windows.
After a while the bride's family, sitting on one side of the
room, passed a 15" notched stick to the groom's family, who counted on it an
opening request for 14 cows, and apparently there was a request that they be
delivered soon, "because the bride's family is elderly."[iii] Here the groom's mother and his deceased
uncle's wife, the gogo (grandmother)
on our homestead (on the left and middle; we don't know the woman to the right), inspect the stick.
The groom and 2 brothers left to slaughter the goat tethered
outside, the traditional welcome for the bride's family.
A few
days before this meeting I asked the bride "Suppose they don't reach
agreement on the lobola, and was assured "They must
agree!" Apparently a standoff is
not an option. I had been assured that
there had been no previous discussions to lay the groundwork for the bargaining,
but there must be a kind of Zillow or "Kelly Blue Book" general
understanding of the right bride price.
The bride's firstborn brother, to whom the lobola would be paid, assured me she was worth more, at least an
extra cow, because she "is a Dlamini," meaning having the same
surname as the king's (very large) family - I estimate that more than 1/10th of
the people here have that last name, some living very well off the king's
largesse, but many, like the bride, wholly destitute.
The
groom's family showed the bride's aunt, chief spokesperson for the bride's
family, a white calf tethered in the field behind the homestead; this is the
"dry the tears" cow paid immediately to the bride's mother (who in
this case is long dead, hence, the Aunt's role, but despite the absence of the
bride's mother the "dry the tears" gift cow must still be paid) to
assuage her loss.
The
break seem to have provided a chance to resolve issues, although I did not see
a sidebar between the families' negotiators.
When the families again gathered in the rondaval they quickly reached
agreement at the original offer of 14 cows;
the groom privately assured me it was too much, but that his wife was
excited.[iv] We have closely questioned several of the
most modern, with-it Swazi women we know, and all agree they are proud their
husbands paid (or agreed to pay) cows for them; we know of only 1 Swazi woman
for whom no lobola was required - one
of the PC instructors, and one of the more able people we know here.
The
bride is what we call a "double orphan"[v],
so the lobola goes to her oldest
brother (except the "dry the tears" cow, which in this case will go
to the aunt), but he kept entirely in the background. He seemed pleased. He should be; it appears the bride and her
husband are to spend the next decade or more working to pay him the lobola. I have been unable to learn of
any financial support he has ever provided to his little sister.
Katherine and I approximated traditional
dress, here with the bride, of whom we are very fond.
Because the
proceedings had started late, the goat was quartered and appropriate pieces
were provided to the bride's family, who took them home to be cooked. Ordinarily the families would have shared
them together. This lobola negotiation is a step in blending the two families. Payment of lobola, which can take decades, finally consummates the joining of
the families. Apparently the bride's
family keeps asking for the lobola
until it is finally paid; that certainly seemed to be the plan of our bride's
firstborn brother. The groom in this
case is perennially short of money, so I would think these requests could
become an irritant. The bride's oldest
brother told me he would not be welcome at this homestead until the lobola was paid, so I am not sure of the
form of his dunning requests, but this is a small country (geographically the
size of New Jersey, but with only around 1.3 million people (no one really
knows!), around 1/8th the population of NJ), so maybe they encounter each
other.
As things were
winding down Katherine sensed from many a latent desire to inspect our family
photographs, which they were able to persuade her to satisfy.
We have now
shared some important family events with our homestead: several funeral
services; a celebration of the recovery to health last year of the diabetic
grandmother; the first and 2nd stage of this traditional wedding; and, when we
first came, the celebration of the final payment of lobola in a Christian wedding by the groom, now a grandfather in
his 40s, after at least 20 years of marriage.
We see many of the same people of this very large extended family come
to the homestead for these celebrations and, during our stay here, their
children have moved forward in school, the health of some has changed (only
rarely for the better) and we've all aged, some.
[i] A little more background on the
participants and what we understand of the different forms of wedding is in our
December 9, 2014 blog post. The wife of
the first-born son on our homestead explained to me that a recent change in the
law now allowed polygamy even in "white" and civil weddings,
supposedly to eliminate foreign white influences; she was furious, and felt her
status had been unfairly changed.
[ii] There is also a separate hut for cooking;
they cook over a very smoky open fire.
It is just to the windward of the
clothes line, so our pillow cases have an aroma of burning acacia after they
are freshly washed. The homestead also
has 2 "little houses" (latrines), one I assume built especially to
meet PC standards when volunteers first moved here - e.g., a door that latches from the inside.
[iii] There appear to be some variation in
customs for negotiating lobola, but
the stick appears ubiquitous.
[iv] In the world I have now left behind
creditors' committee counsel would have come back with a much tougher demand
and postured and threatened. That
"would not be Swazi." For
better or worse. When the former king
revoked the parliamentary monarchy the British left this country with and
imposed a "more Swazi" absolute monarchy, there was little opposition
- not Swazi.
[v] Neither parent is alive. Although the term "single orphan"
(only one parent) may seem oxymoronic, the concept is useful because children
for whom one parent is dead do far worse than those with both parents, in
measurements of mortality, health, education, and future income and
employment. "OVC's" ("orphans
(including "single" orphans) or vulnerable children") is a legally
defined status with important consequences, foremost of which is government
payment of school fees. The High School
here recently devoted a full day to screening putative OVCs, requiring each to appear before the entire School Committee
with her documents (death certificate, OVC certificate) and a guardian to prove
up their status; around 8 of the community's Rural Health Motivators (women
paid a tiny monthly stipend to visit each homestead to help with routine health
issues - uneducated but well-trained and determined women who take their task
extremely seriously - oen of the better health initiatives here), were present
to corroborate or perhaps contest the claims of OVC status.
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