South and South Central Africa / A record of fifteen years' missionary labors among primitive peoples

by Hannah Frances Davidson

If the child is a girl, it may at any time after birth be betrothed or sold to a man for his wife, and a part or all of the pay be given to the parents to bind the contract. This intended husband may be already middle-aged or old, with several wives. That is to his credit, because it frequently means that he is rich or a man of importance in the community. An old, gray-haired man living near the mission had nine wives when we arrived on the scene, some of whom were just young girls. However, one frequently meets with heathen natives who have only one wife.

The would-be bridegroom sends some one to the father or guardian of the girl to ask for her hand in marriage. He consults his relatives in reference to the matter, but even if they disagree, he may give his consent, for he alone receives the pay. This may be in the form of cattle, sheep, or goats, or even money in later years, and the amount of pay the man can or is willing to give had much to do with the father's consent. Of course the girl has no say in the affair, and may not, until she is older, know who her intended husband is. If she is small, he waits until she is about grown before the actual marriage takes place, but in the meantime she is looked upon as his prospective wife and is often thoroughly demoralized before marriage.

Before the missionaries or Europeans came to the country, it is doubtful whether the girl rebelled much as to what disposition was made of her, for one choice was about the same as another, only so that she might become a married woman. In their eyes it was almost a disgrace to be unmarried after they had reached the proper age.

It is said that when the time came for her to be married she would say, "I am grown and want to marry." At first her people refuse, but finally they give her a hoe and showing her a piece of raw veldt say, "Show how you can dig, so that we may see whether you have strength to perform the work of a wife." She takes the hoe and shows her strength by vigorous work; for is she not to take the place of oxen or donkeys for her husband and plow and sow his gardens? This is no exaggeration, for more than one native has been heard to exclaim, "These are my oxen," pointing to his wives, the chief difference being that whereas the oxen get some time to rest and eat, the wife gets little, as she must grind and prepare the food in the interim of digging.

When the day set for the wedding arrives, a number of girls of about her own age are called and they have a feast, often of goat, after which they accompany the bride to the home of the bridegroom, an old woman, carrying a knife, leading the way. Here they are assigned their places and various ceremonies. The wedding lasts several days and ends in a feast, and very often much immorality is connected with it. During a certain stage of the ceremony the bride runs and hides, not again making her appearance until she is found by the others.

So-called marriages sometimes take place without any pay being given for the wife, but in such instances the children do not belong to or are not under the control of their parents; they belong to the father or guardian of the wife, as she has not been paid for. It may thus be seen that the giving of pay is not an unmitigated evil, as it leaves the children in the hands of their natural guardians, the parents. With the wife the pay is merely changing her from the ownership of her father to that of her husband, and if she should leave her husband, the pay or part of it must be returned to him.

It frequently happens that a man takes a wife according to native marriage without paying for her, and afterwards, if he desires to retain her or her children, he pays the father for her. A native in the vicinity of Matopo had, in this manner, taken five wives, at various times, without paying for any of them. When some of his children became of an age that his wives' parents desired to take them, he took steps to secure them by paying for his wives. One, however, whom he did not like, he drove away without paying for her. These things show that the marriage vow is exceedingly loose and leads to much immorality. Several years after we came to Matopo Hills a law was passed by the British Government, allowing the girls some freedom of choice in regard to the marriage question, and it is now possible for Christian girls to choose Christian husbands.

A man will have a hut for himself and one for each of his wives, and the more wives he has, the greater his importance in the community. I think that it is safe to say that an old heathen's ambition is to have many wives, each with her hut, about him, many sons, who too, with their wives, add to the number of huts, and many daughters, that he may sell them for cattle or sheep and thus increase his flocks and herds. He also likes to have nephews, younger brothers, and other relatives with their wives come to him and swell the number of huts. This makes a large number of huts, large herds, and he becomes an important headman; or if his followers increase sufficiently he may become a chief. These huts, built near together and often enclosed with a fence, are what constitute a kraal. This is a Dutch word and applies only to native villages, but there may be only three or four huts and it still be called a kraal.

Their huts are built of poles and mud, much as described in the making of our own, except that the huts of the raw natives are much lower, without windows and with a doorway only about three feet in height. Sometimes no poles are used in the construction of the walls, but they are moulded of earth from the bottom up and are well made. The floor is made of ant-hill earth, well pounded. This is then covered with a thin coat of black earth and polished with stones until it looks not unlike a nicely-polished wooden floor. The Matabele build much better huts than some of the subject tribes; these latter are good farmers, but often have most miserable-looking huts.