Perhaps this will be the best place in which to make a few remarks on the mother-in-law. She and her son-in-law may never look on each other’s face. I have often heard a man say, “So-and-so, your mother-in-law is coming,” and the person addressed would run into my house and hide himself until his wife’s mother had gone by. They can sit at a little distance from each other, with their backs to one another, and talk over affairs when necessary. Bokilo means mother-in-law, daughter-in-law, brother-in-law, father-in-law, sister of mother-in-law, brother of father-in-law, wife of wife’s brother, and in fact any relation-in-law. Bokilo, the noun, is derived from kila = to forbid, prohibit, taboo, and indicates that all bearing the relationship of bokilo can have no intimate relationship with one another, for it is regarded as incestuous; and it is according to native ideas just as wrong for a daughter-in-law to speak or look at her husband’s father, as for the son-in-law to speak or look at his wife’s mother. Some have told me that this was to guard against all possibility of cohabitation, “For a person you never look at you never desire.” Others have said, “Well, don’t you see, my wife came from her womb.” I am strongly inclined to the opinion that the former is the real reason.
I knew a case in which a man married his mother-in-law by marriage. The woman was not his wife’s mother, but his wife’s father’s wife, and as such was his mother-in-law. I had seen him avoid her many times, and it was thus evident that all the wives of the wife’s father are regarded as joint-mothers of the children, and hence mothers-in-law. His wife’s father died, and the man wanted to have one of the wives (i.e. one of his mothers-in-law) as his own wife, so he arranged with a friend to pay the marriage money and take her as his wife, then she, by that marriage, being no longer his mother-in-law, he was able to take her as his own wife. He thereupon paid the money for her and took her to his house.
I cannot close this chapter on marriage and child-birth without putting on record my observations regarding polygamy and its effects on the Congo. Polygamy means monopoly in women, and causes great immorality among the natives practising it; and it is now fast dying out within the sphere of our influence upon the Lower Congo, and in the neighbourhood of our stations upon the Upper. The effect of polygamy was to tie up the women to a comparatively small number of men who were fortunate (?) enough to inherit them, or had procured the wealth with which to pay their marriage money. There was a constant complaint amongst the young and vigorous men of the middle and lower orders that it was almost impossible for them to procure wives. Thus we found a small number of men possessing nearly all the women in a town, having from four or five up to twenty-five and thirty each, and a large number of young men who could not secure wives. Moreover, these wealthy men, besides having all these wives, had bespoken most of the young girls, many almost infants; for it was no uncommon thing for girls of three or four years to be betrothed to men of forty and fifty years of age; and as soon as they reached puberty the marriage money was completed, and they were passed over to their already very much married husbands.
Now my observations of polygamy, both on the Lower and Upper Congo, have led me to form a decided opinion that it does not conduce to productivity, but the contrary. Under this system I have never known a large family. One man had eight wives, and he had five children by one and none by the others; another had ten wives and no children; another had twenty-three wives and only one child; another twenty-five wives and three children only; another who had eight wives had three children. Mapwata, chief of Ntenta in French Congo, had forty wives, but only five children. In Mfumu Ngoma’s village there were 87 men, 67 married women, and only 37 children. In the village of Mbela there were about 60 married women, as shown by the number of houses, and only 28 children, and so on ad lib.
If you ask a native chief, husband of many wives, how many children he has, he will state an absurd number, not because he desires to deceive you, but for the following reasons: All the children, of his brothers and sisters, and all their children’s children, are spoken of as the chief’s children, as he is the head of the family, i.e. all the nephews and nieces, the grand-nephews and grand-nieces are regarded as a man’s own off-spring, besides his own children and grandchildren; many of us could make up large families in this way. And again, the native has a very strong superstition and prejudice against counting his children, for he believes that if he does so, or if he states the proper number, the evil spirits will hear it and some of his children will die; hence when you ask him such a simple question as, “How many children have you?” you stir up his superstitious fears, and he will answer: “I don’t know.” If you press him, he will tell you sixty, or one hundred children, or any other number that jumps to his tongue; and even then he is thinking of those who, from the native view of kinship, are regarded as his children, and desiring to deceive, not you, but those ubiquitous and prowling evil spirits, he states a large number that leaves a wide margin. I have been introduced by young men to men, much older than themselves, as “my children,” and there was a twinkle in their eyes, showing that they appreciated the humorous absurdity of the situation.
Among the Congo languages there is no proper word for virgin, for there was not in the old days a pure girl above the age of five. I would, therefore, most emphatically dissent from the oft-repeated fallacious statement that polygamy promotes morality among native tribes; that it has caused widespread immorality on the Congo is truer to the facts.
After carefully reviewing all the data I am forced to the conclusion that polygamy is not necessitated by the climate, but is the natural outcome of their customs, mode of thought, and view of life. A Congo man will fight, trade, carry heavy loads for long distances, and work, but he will not hoe the ground, that is infra dig. to him. He will dig the white man’s farm, but he will not work land in his own village, so, to use his own words, he “hires” or “borrows” a woman to do this for him, and the more women he has the less likely is he to go hungry. Again, the more women he has the more important he is, the greater his influence and social standing; when a native wants to impress you with the greatness of his chief or the importance of the head of his family, he tells you the number of his wives, and he does not mind adding a dozen to the sum total.
Again, chiefs in receiving visits from other chiefs and their retinues had to give free hospitality for long periods. This required a large amount of food and several women to prepare it daily. Then again, for generations the women have believed that if they allowed their husbands to have intercourse with them between the time of pregnancy and the weaning of their children, those children would die. This superstitious belief has been a potent factor in keeping polygamy alive, if it did not originate it. Remember how they procure their wives, and that the woman’s family must replace her in the event of death, consequently the family has been careful to see that she has not been weakened by frequent child-bearing, lest they should have to give another woman in her place. Among some tribes the man had to wait until his wife’s family took him a calabash of palm-wine, and renewed their permission to him.
Some writers think, judging by the tone of their articles, that we missionaries rush pell-mell into a country, and delight in upsetting the institutions and customs of a place whether they are good, bad, or indifferent. This, however, is not true to the facts as I know them.
Our Mission on the Congo commenced its operations in 1878, and it was well on in the eighties before churches were formed, with rules and regulations for the guidance of converts. In the meantime a language had been reduced to writing, much translation work had been done, and a mass of information collected about the habits, customs, and view of life taken by the native. “Many men, many minds” is an old saying, and we found it a true one when the time came to deal with native marriage customs and polygamy in relation to church membership. There was not a single aspect of this great question but had its exponents; and it was not until after mature consideration, and a careful study of all the pros and cons, that we came to the conclusion that monogamy was the only wise rule to adopt, and we therefore laid it down as a condition of church membership that one man should have one wife only.