Project topics and materials
Get Complete Project Material File(s) Now! »
Marriage
In this section, the researcher intends to deal only with the religious side of marriage in order to demonstrate the cultural embodiment of this gospel feature in African traditional religion. It should however, be borne in mind that there are other dimensions that contribute to a fuller understanding of African concepts and practices of marriage. Mbiti (1969:148) maintains that for traditional Africans, marriage is a religious duty and responsibility. It forms the focal point where departed, present and coming members of society meet. It is the point of hope and expectation for the unmarried and their relatives. Once it has been reached and procreation has taken place, the individual may now drift slowly into the Zamani: his/her solemn duty is performed. Sasa and Zamani are Akan concepts of time or periods of a person’s life. The ‘Sasa’ is the entire period after birth and the ‘Zamani’ is the period after physical death.
The physical sides of choosing the partner, preparation for marriage, actual wedding ceremony and marriage gift, are the outward expression of a religious happening which says: “We are making a sacred undertaking”. This confirms that to traditional Africans, marriage is an institution ‘designed’ by God. The African traditional culture embodies this gospel feature, and it was observed over many years.
The African marriage, more like the Western practice, is a contract or association between two persons for mutual support and the furtherance of the human race and rearing of children. But in Africa marriage has a wider aspect of an alliance between groups of kin.
Any marriage is a matter of interest not only of the “family unit” but also to a wider circle of relatives, particularly the members of the lineage of each. Every marriage requires the consent of some senior person, sometimes not even the nearest male relative but the lineage head (Mair 1969:4).
Mbiti (1969:133) maintains that in the African culture everyone must get married. He endeavours to highlight the dimensions of an African marriage when he says that:
“Marriage is a complex affair with economic, and religious aspects which often overlap so firmly that they cannot be separated from one another”.
For African people, marriage is the focus of their existence. It is the point where all the members of a given community meet: the departed, the living and those yet to be born. All the dimensions of time meet here, and the whole drama of history is repeated, renewed and revitalized. Mbiti (1969:26) points the religious significance of marriage in African culture by drawing in the concept ‘personal immortality’.
Celibacy and childlessness
Archer (1990:123) says that celibacy was never considered as a virtue in Jewish thought. This means that the commandment to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28) excluded the possibility of celibacy. Marriage and of course the raising of a family were regarded as duties to be fulfilled by all adults.
Mahlangu (1999:104) rightly observed that the one who does not participate in marriage, especially with Africans, may be regarded as a curse to the community. He is a rebel and a law-breaker. He is not only abnormal but also ‘under-human’. Failure to get married under normal circumstances means that the person concerned has rejected society and society rejects him in return.
Having children is considered as a validating factor in the African marriage. In Africa a married woman who does not produce children feels very much miserable. The agonies of being childless are so immense that the woman stops at nothing to help herself to bear children. Some traditional Zulu sayings for bragging and despising childless women go thus: “Ganu! Ganu! mfaz’ ongazalanga”, which means ‘envy, envy, you woman that never had children’. At times sayings of ‘self- praise’ read thus: “Kuhle kwethu!” which means ‘our things are wonderful’. The childless woman would simply break into tears on hearing such words. This indicates the magnitude of the pain of childlessness. It means a lot to African people. To other nations (Westerners) there are couples who decide to stay without children even though they were fertile, such a problem is no pain at all. Therefore, children are not a validating factor for marriage. This is a question of choice and should be left to the discretion of the people concerned.
Monogamy and polygamy
Mbiti (1969:142) indicates that technically the term ‘polygamy’ should mean what its Greek components imply, and that is, marrying ‘many’ (wives, husbands or times). But in popular usage it is applied to mean the state of marriage in which there is one husband and two or more wives. This should be referred to as ‘polygyny’, and where one wife has two or more husbands this is ‘polyandry’. Monogamy refers to a marriage where one husband has only one wife. In this section, ‘polygamy’ will be used in the popular sense, even though it is realized that linguistically that is only partly correct.
Getting married to two or more wives is a custom found all over Africa. In some societies it is less common than in others. The custom fits well into the social structure of traditional life. It also fits into the thinking of the people, serving many useful purposes as will be demonstrated in the following sections of this work.
Mbiti (1969:142) maintains that if the philosophical or theological attitude towards marriage and procreation is that these are an aid towards the partial recapture or attainment of the lost immortality, the more wives a man has the more children he is likely to have. The more the children the stronger the power of ‘immortality’ in that family. He who has many descendants has the strongest possible manifestation of ‘immortality’. He is ‘reborn’ in the multitude of his descendants, and there are many that ‘remember’ him after he has died physically and entered his ‘personal immortality’. Such a man has the attitude that ‘the more we are, the bigger I am’.
Children are the glory of marriage, and the more there are of them the greater the glory. This kind of thinking may not be appreciated in the Western life-style, which may prefer smaller nuclear families than large extended ones of Africa. Therefore, researchers have to broaden their perspectives when dealing with Africa. They must apply a research method that is relevant to the specific context.
Chapter 1
Introductory orientation
1.1 Introduction
1.2 The problem
1.3 Inculturation hermeneutic
1.4 Structure of the thesis
Chapter 2
The Gospel: An African perspective
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Motivation and background
2.3 Some gospel features in African traditional culture
Chapter 3
The cult of ancestor veneration
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Who is the ancestor?
3.3 The ‘world’ of ancestors
3.4 Concept of omniscience
3.5 The nature and functions of ancestors
3.6 Is it ancestor veneration or worship?
3.7 The act of libation
3.8 Rituals and festivals
3.8.4 Summary
Chapter 4
The concept of salvation in African traditional religion and culture
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Rationale and challenge
4.3 The biblical concept of salvation
4.4 The African concept of salvation
4.5 Traditional African healing versus western medicine: motivation and support
4.6 Man’s salvation: its nature and meaning in African traditional religion
4.7 Summary
Chapter 5
Conclusion
Bibliography
