Marriage Mozambican style

My best buddy here, Rachid, performed the traditional side of his wedding this afternoon. That is, he performed the traditional ceremonies required by his wife's family to formalize his marriage. For a while he’s been pushing to get his life in order so that he can be civilly married, as the church teaches, but one thing that’s gotten in his way is his wife’s (Olivia’s) father’s family. Olivia’s mother and father are separated, with her mother living her in Beira and her father living in Maputo. Rachid and Olivia have been together for more than five years, and when they first got together he had fulfilled the traditional obligations required by his wife’s mother—but they hadn’t done anything with the father’s family, as he hasn’t really made any effort to stay in contact with her or do anything for her since she was around 18. But then, a few months ago, her father’s family had contacted her, visited, disapproved of the low living standard Rachid was providing for her, and almost forced her to move out and come back to live with them in Maputo. Rachid traveled to Maputo and was able to convince them to not do that, and with time, was able to convince them to let him fulfill all of their familial traditions and stay married to her. So today was the day that they had all come up from Maputo (and some of them from South Africa—Olivia’s family is originally from South Africa) to fulfill these traditional ceremonies. And Rachid invited me to come along, an invite my inner anthropologist was all too happy to accept, as I’ve been very curious to understand traditional marriage more profoundly here.

The ceremony itself was really fascinating—the main people present who played a part in the ceremony were representatives from the two families, Rachid’s uncle and some male relative of Olivia’s. Rachid’s uncle started the ceremony by asking for a plate, on which he first put the money for the lobolo (traditionally here, the groom’s family must pay a certain bridewealth, or lobolo, however much is asked by the bride’s family). He then pulled out a piece of paper on which the bride’s family had written all of the other aspects of the lobolo—that is, specific presents they had asked to be given in exchange for the bride. In this sense, from what a few people present were telling me, Rachid had gotten off a bit easy, as the bride’s family sometimes asks for really expensive things, like several full suits for male relatives and expensive dresses for female relatives, cows, and things like that. In Rachid’s case today, he was asked to buy presents for four relatives (his wife, both her parents, and her stepdad), and they were all relatively small things: blouses, skirts, pants, shirts, shoes, and some wine and beer. After Rachid’s uncle finished going over the list, unwrapping and showing each present as it was listed, Olivia’s family sat and debated whether they would accept it or not. They did accept it, but the ceremony wasn’t over. Rachid’s uncle came and placed a small bill on the plate, asking for the bride (Olivia wasn’t in the room yet). The family brought a girl from another room, but it wasn’t Olivia, and Rachid’s uncle said that this wasn’t the bride, and, placing another bill on the plate, asked for the real bride to be brought in (a friend told me that, if you’re smart, you’ll change all your money into small bills, because during this part of the ceremony the groom’s family has to put down another bill at each step, and if you’ve only got big bills, that gets pricey really quickly). This time they did bring Olivia (though, I guess in theory, they could continue to bring in fake brides just to get more money, though that seems pretty sneaky), and Rachid’s uncle placed another bill on the plate, asking for the right to dress Olivia in the clothes she had been given as a present. Her family agreed, and a female member of Rachid’s family went with Olivia into another room to dress her in the clothes which they had bought. The same process was followed for Olivia’s mom, dad, and stepdad—Rachid’s uncle would come forward and put a bill on the plate asking for the person to be brought forth, and then place another bill asking for the right to dress them in their new present clothes.

After finishing all of that, Rachid’s uncle put another bill on the plate, asking for the right to put the ring on the bride. As they did, the representative from Olivia’s family told her to always remember that this ring is a sign to her that she belongs to someone, and that she must act accordingly. Having finished, Rachid’s uncle asked if the bride was theirs now, or if there was anything else missing. The representative from Olivia’s family said everything was in order, and that the bride was now theirs.

During the whole ceremony, I was really struck with how it seemed to be a commodification of the woman involved—but then, as I thought about it more, I realized more and more how much the tie between engagement diamonds and self-worth is a subtler version of the same thing in traditional American society. So yeah—we all commodify our women. Isn’t humanity wonderful.

On a less fatalistic note, my buddy Mounga, who’s also really close to Rachid and was at the wedding today, said something pretty funny, in a cross-culturally surreal kind of way—he’s a return missionary, and a bit more exposed to odd American LDS church culture, and leaned over to me at one point and said, “This really reminds me of Johnny Lingo.” It was at a rather quiet part of the ceremony, so I tried not to guffaw.

At the end, several of the people from Olivia’s family danced to celebrate—there was one lady with glasses who could really shake it. I love this dance you see people do a lot here (and apparently also in South Africa, from what I’ve seen in a few films) that’s mainly a shaking of the shoulders as you extend your arms out. It looks mad cool.