If he wants to marry a third wife, he must have the consent of the first two and must give them a present called “Reconciliation”.
If he buys a concubine, he may not give her the same share of his sleep as his wives, but three nights with his wife and one with his concubine. If he buys clothes to give them, he must not give the concubine the same quality as the wives, or they will be vexed. But despite such fair dealing, there is no end to the troubles of a man with two wives. One wants this and the other that, and if they share a house, they disagree, particularly at night, if he goes to a wife when it is not her turn. The other will hear them talking and laughing, and in the morning there will be trouble.
When they quarrel it is most unpleasant. They bite each other and hit each other with sticks. Two wives should not be kept in one house. Some get along well, but not really. The customary treatment of two wives should be taught to a man thoroughly, or he should read about it in books. If he does not know it, there will be perpetual trouble.
The Customs of the Swahili People Mtoro bin Mwinyi Bakari.
An Arab wedding.
In Faza we met an Arab whom we knew from our previous visits to the coast. He was a wealthy merchant, temporarily here to marry a young local girl, an addition to his older wives. As he was an old friend of ours he invited us to his wedding, a great privilege. I had a long talk with the bride’s mother, a dignified and still very attractive Arab woman. From her I learned that, though the bridegroom is not supposed to see his bride before their marriage, it can sometimes be arranged for him to have a glance at her from a distance.
For three days before the wedding her daughter had been kept at home to be beautified for the great occasion. She was massaged with fragrant oils, carefully groomed, and the palms of her hands were painted with a network-pattern. During this time she had to keep silent while all her women friends, who were helping and chattering around her, were given refreshments and generally had a good time.
On the evening preceding the wedding we heard a low singing, now and then broken by piercing shrieks. Following the sound, we saw a procession of veiled women wearing buibuis, swaying step by step through the village while clapping their hands and using rattles and drums to accompany their chanting. As far as I could see in the dim light, their rattles were made out of a segment of a buffalo horn. Others beat ox-horns with little sticks or shook tambourines. But the most arresting was the haunting tune of the zomari flute which was played by the men. The women went on chanting and swaying, and long after we had gone to bed I could hear the sombre tune of the zomari. The party only came to an end at dawn.
The wedding had been fixed for 1opm the next day, for at this hour, according to the astrologers, there was the most favourable conjunction of stars for the bridegroom. He spent all day with his future male relations, while the women put the last touches to the bride’s attire. I was allowed to be present, but kept in the background. The girl was very young and exceptionally beautiful. Her delicate, pale features were enhanced by a thick coat of mascara round her eyes. Two golden coins adorned her cheeks; I was told that they were kept in position by some kind of mastic. Jasmine blossoms covered her black hair and part of her dress, and their scent mixed with the heavy perfume with which the women constantly sprayed her. While the bustle went on she sat motionless, aloof and silent in the middle of a large bed….
During the day the bride received a present from her betrothed; this was not part of the brideprice which he had already given to her parents. If she accepted the gift, he knew that she was still willing to marry him and the wedding could then be performed without the bride being present.
With male relations as witnesses, the bridegroom was then seated on a chair that was slightly higher than the one opposite on which the mullah sat. He held the Koran in his hands while the wedding was being sealed. Immediately afterwards the men went to the house in which the bride was waiting and, firing shots to announce the arrival of the bridegroom, danced the sword dance.
While all this went on outside the house, the women who were with the bride grew more and more excited. The door was still kept shut but there was much whispering behind it. Suddenly there were three knocks and immediately a curtain was drawn across the bed to hide the bride, and after this the door was opened to let the men in. They spent only a short time in the bridal room and then retired, leaving the bridegroom behind. The women, who were now very quiet, brought refreshments to the bridegroom who seated himself opposite the curtain which concealed his bride. Women oiled his head and arms, and he washed his feet. Then everyone left, except for one woman who kept discreetly behind the curtain of the bed to chaperone the bride. There was silence. At that moment the bride stretched her hand from behind the curtain and the bridegroom placed another gift in it while talking to her softly.
Then the woman in the corner gave me a signal and we left the pair alone. For the next seven days they would remain together in the house.
The Peoples of Kenya Joy Adamson.
Three views on the position of women in traditional society: first, the Swahili.
When a man lives with his wife, she is allowed to do nothing whatever without her husband’s consent. If he forbids something that he does not like, that is the end of it, and if the woman does it she is called recalcitrant, because she does not obey her husband. A free woman may not go out by day without excuse, except for natural calls. She must be veiled if she wants to go for a talk at a friend’s house, and she must go at night between seven and nine, and she must be accompanied by a slave girl. If a woman disobeys her husband, it is for him to correct her; but for serious offences he takes her to the magistrate for correction.
The Customs of the Swahili People Mtoro bin Mwinyi Bakari.
Among the Pokot (Suk).
PASTORAL SUK
Women have no liberty, they must do as they are told.
AGRICULTURAL SUK
“Woman is a property, and must do as she is told and all the work.” – Elders of Kerūt.
ENDO
“Women are just like slaves and do all the work.” – Lōseron.
TURKANA
“Women do all the work, bring water and firewood, build huts, milk the cows, and cultivate the land. If they refuse we beat them.” – Aijigwa.
EN-JEMUSI
Women’s work is to grind corn, cultivate the fields, milk the cows, etc. If she likes her husband she will do all these things. If she does not like him she will probably run away to some one else.” – Launjali.
The Suk Mervyn Beech.
Among the Somali round Wajir.
Here women are normally regarded as no better than slaves. Their work is hard in a hard country. They face a never-ending string of pregnancies, of malnutrition, of fighting for their children’s survival. Perhaps the most burdensome of their circumstances is their degrading position in the community. There are even extremists who hold that women have no souls, and sometimes a Somali girl at marriage is kicked and beaten by her husband, to ensure submission in the future. Infibulation (sewing up of the vulva) is still practised. A young girl will be infibulated until her marriage, and when a man goes away he first infibulates his wife to make sure that she is faithful to him in his absence. This is also common practice in parts of Ethiopia, Somalia and the Sudan.
It does not require much imagination to understand the degradation, pain, and even sepsis that must be endured by these women, and finally the extra pain and difficulty endured at childbirth. The idea of the primitive races giving birth with ease is a total myth. Both circumcision and infibulation cause distortions and deformities, adhesions and scar tissue which add greatly to the difficulties of childbirth. Into this environment Annalena1 has set a community run by women for the benefit of those who, in the battle for survival, have not been considered worth saving. A sort of wonder seems to cling to the girls’ faces as they begin to take part in a world of which they could not have dreamt.
Different Drums Michael Wood.
Major Njombo, 1983.
One of the people I had hoped to see, and did see, was Major Esther Wambui Njombo. She arrived in time for tea in her civilian clothes, small and trim and neat, driven by a formidable lady twice her size in army uniform. Major Njombo had been born on my parents’ farm at Njoro and was the daughter of our headman Njombo, and a much younger wife. Njombo had died in 1952 when she was about three.
She went on to a secondary school and then became a teacher. One day in 1973 she heard that women were being recruited for the army. This was a revolutionary measure introduced by M’zee Kenyatta, and only ten girls were initially accepted. Esther Wambui got in on the ground floor, and in less than ten years rose to her present rank. After a spell at Sandhurst, she was given command of the women’s section of the Kenyan army. When a detachment went to Britain to take part in the Royal Tournament at Earl’s Court, she was its commander. Now, at thirty-five, the army provides her with a house, a car and driver, generous pay, and a pension in a few years’ time.
Did she ever go back to Njoro? “Oh, yes, I go back sometimes. I have a shamba there – not on your mother’s old farm but close to it, on Major Adams’.” She has two other properties: four valuable acres at Langata, Nairobi’s fashionable suburb, and two hundred acres north of Mount Kenya where she grows wheat on contract. She has a son of ten. Wambui, her mother, shares her house in Nairobi.
It is almost as if a new species has appeared on earth, the young Kenyan woman who has put tribal ways behind her. Self-assured, well-mannered, elegantly clad and with a neat Afro hair-do, these independent young ladies cope competently with word-processors and computers; they staff banks, manage shops, work as stylists in hair-dressing salons, as flower-arrangers, as secretaries and drivers. How much initiative and ability must have gone to waste for all those centuries, how much talent lain buried! I know that women had, and have, a respected place in tribal society, that their rights were no less well defined than their duties, and to think that they had been regarded as mere beasts of burden was a superficial view. Nevertheless their place in tribal society was subservient; child bearing and rearing their purpose, and the scope for any form of self-expression small. On any road leading from the capital, within a mile of the Kenyatta Centre, you can see, today, women looking older than their years, toiling along under their loads. The smoke-blackened hut, three cooking stones, the gathering of firewood are far from obsolete. That was Major Esther’s background. The image of a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis is compelling.
Out in the Midday Sun Elspeth Huxley.
A contemporary Kikuyu describes his own marriage.
There are certain things that we do in our country to increase the bonds between the two families involved in any marriage. People who do not know talk about “bride-price” and “buying” wives; these words confuse the purpose and effect of what happens, which is the transfer of cattle and other property from the family of the bridegroom to that of the bride. If the couple do not agree together it is not then so easy for them to divorce each other without good reason. The father of the bride will not lightly gather together all the property he received because of some minor domestic tantrum or lovers’ tiff. Great family pressure will be brought on the bride to continue with her marriage as long as it is reasonable for her to do so. It was necessary for me to hand over nine cattle to my father-in-law. One cow equals ten goats, and one goat equals twenty shillings, so each cow was worth two hundred shillings. I had these cattle because when my sisters married we were brought many by the families of their husbands….
It is also a tradition for the bridegroom to give certain gifts to the mother and father of the bride (muhiki) to replace those that the bride’s father gave to the bride’s mother’s parents. These gifts would differ from family to family but normally include a mukwa (head strap), kiondo (basket) and nguo ya maribe (women’s skin dress embroidered with beads) for the mother and a ruhiu (small sword), itimu ria nduthu (special spear) and githii gia ikami (a man’s skin cloak) for the father. Sometimes the father or mother would say that they preferred something else instead of one of these things. If this was the case it would be agreed upon and handed down the generations. For example, I gave Gordon a mackintosh and I shall now expect that when my daughter is married my son-in-law will give me one as well. My lover’s parents said that it would be best to commute all the other articles into a sum of money and we agreed on one thousand shillings. They allowed me to pay this in instalments since I had been so prompt with the cattle, and I am still giving it to them.
For an educated man getting married in our country is a very expensive business as we have to comply with both the old and the new customs. Fortunately I still had with me some of the money which had accompanied me to the Three Dry Hills. Having done so much political work it was now going to finance a more social occasion. My family and nearest relatives, together with some of my close political friends, provided the rest. Money was needed for fitting out the three best men with new suits, buying the three bridesmaids new outfits, a reception at Doris’s home and my home, a dance at the Ruringu Social Club, photographs, transport and church expenses. The total cost was three thousand shillings. Although my faith had often weakened I was still a Christian, so was Doris, and we decided to get married in the Presbyterian Church at Nyeri. Doris’s dress was white flecked with gold, and it looked really wonderful to me….
On 10 September 1960 I woke up before the cocks began crowing, very excited at what was going to happen. As the sun stole up out of the ground Wangui called me and soon my three friends came to take me with them amidst much joking and laughter. In the peace of the church I led Doris before the altar and we stood in front of the old man together, answering the questions he asked us. Then I placed the ring (gicuhi) on Doris’s finger and I quietly told her that we had now created a new person, Mrs Josiah Mwangi.
The first party, the bride’s reception, was held at Riamukurwe School, organized largely by the headmaster. The school-children had been excitedly preparing for it for days and there was a huge banner over the entrance saying “WELCOME” and hung with flowers from the school garden. One of our customs is that the women of a village make a pretence of preventing the bride leaving her home: their sorrow at losing her is usually only consoled by a large “bribe”. Sure enough as we neared the school I saw hundreds of women barring the way and dancing the “mikondi”. They had with them a gitaruru, a large basket they used for keeping food in. Our people also throw the grain up in the air from it and blow the chaff away as it comes down. Until this was filled they would not let me through. My assistants had foreseen this, however, and we had with us in the car a bucket filled with a hundred shillings’ worth of ten- and five-cent pieces, which we showered into the basket. The dancing ranks opened and we progressed a few yards until the singers closed in on us again. This time we poured in a hundred shillings’ worth of fifty cent and shilling pieces and we went jerkily on to the entrance, where we had to pay a final tax of two hundred shilling notes. Our women are stubborn on these occasions. Usually this money is given back to the bridegroom’s mother, but this time it went to Doris’s parents.
We had a superb two-tier cake, made by Mrs Diment, the wife of the Community Development Officer in Nyeri, and many of my friends from all races came to eat it with me, including the District Commissioner who had released my mother. This was the time when the Nyeri students were going on the airlift to America and Josef Mathenge took some of the cake with him that evening to Nairobi to eat it with them as they waited for their aeroplane. There was another reception at my own home in Kariko which the whole village joined in and then the dance at the Ruringu Social Club. The next day we went to Mombasa for our honeymoon. We had invited many people to our wedding and the last guests were still coming along in April 1961, seven months afterwards.
Mau Mau Detainee Josiah Mwangi Kariuki.
The Common Task
The trivial round, the common task
Would f
urnish all we need to ask.
John Keble
The common task indeed furnished all that any African woman would need to ask in the way of toil. This sketch of daily life among the Elgeyo people would fit almost any of the cultivating tribes in the period to which it relates, the 1920s, and after.
The Elgeyo do not have many distractions to upset the daily routine. The women, in particular, lead a very cut-and-dried existence, which would not appeal to a European. They do all the work of the home and most of the cultivating. Their day starts at 5am, and does not finish until they retire with the rest of the household about 10pm. Their first job on rising is to cleanse the gourds ready for the morning milking. They use a little water and a brush made of the stem of the Doum palm leaf, frayed by chewing the thicker end. The gourds are left in the sun until dry, when a smouldering brand of olive wood is rubbed round the inside. Finally, a stick is used to extinguish the embers left. This method of cleansing is not very thorough, as large quantities of ash are left in the gourd, and discolour the new milk put into it.
While the gourds are drying, the women grind the Eleusine grain (wimbi) for the morning meal. They use two stones – a large smooth one is put on the floor, and on it is placed some grain which is then ground with a smaller stone held in the hands.
Nine Faces Of Kenya Page 51