Kinship and Marriage among the Nuer

                                        by E. E. Evans-Pritchard

                This is presented in two parts.  To go to part two, press here

CHAPTER III: MARRIAGE

I have suggested in the last chapter that the range of the Nuer incest taboo can be understood only in relation to their rules prohibiting marriage between kin. These in their turn are only intelligible when viewed as part of the kinship system to which they belong, and that kinship system derives its particular form from its function in the political structure of the Nuer.

Kinship is a general word for describing any relationship of one individual to another through his father or mother. All kinship ties thus derive from the family, that universal and fundamental social group which everywhere and in some way or another incorporates the institution of marriage. It is therefore partly for logical reasons that I describe first how matrimonial unions are brought about among the Nuer and discuss the kinship relations which derive from them later. I describe marriage and kinship in this order also partly for convenience, in that kinship among the Nuer is so largely defined by reference to bridewealth.

I describe in this first section relations between the sexes before marriage, and in the following sections the chief ceremonies by which marriage is brought about, the payments of bridewealth which together with the ceremonies create valid and durable unions, the affinal relations which arise from the unions, and the various forms of domestic union we find among the Nuer side by side with matrimony in the full legal sense.

Sexual activities are from their earliest manifestations given the stamp of cultural values. They are from the first associated with marriage, which is the final goal of the sex life of men and women.Even the very poor and the disabled form domestic establishments of some kind and talk proudly of 'my father-in-law' and 'my mother-in-law'. It is the chief ambition of a youth to marry and have a home (gol) of his own, for when Nuer speak of marriage they speak of a home. They say of a youth: 'He is married -- he has a gol.' Even in childhood it is clear to Nuer that marriage and the birth of children are the ultimate purpose of the sexual functions to which all earlier activities of a sexual kind-play, love-making, and courtship-are a prelude, a preparation, and a means.

So long as there is no erotic behaviour in public, no inhibitions attach to sexual interests and their expression, and no one tries to hide from children the facts of sexual life, which they can learn by observing their elders and the flocks and herds among which childhood is spent. A boy who is seen by his elders in sexual play with a girl of his own age will merely be told not to act as though be had been initiated -- he can do what he likes then -- and at the most might receive a cut with a grass switch. No one considers his conduct immoral, and the older people will joke about such things among themselves.

Children start playing at marriage from the time they begin to walk, at first as uncomprehending observers of the games of older children and then as participants in them. They make cattle byres and huts of sand, and mud oxen and cows, and with these conduct bridewealth negotiations and perform marriage ceremonies, and they play at domestic and conjugal life, including sometimes in the game, I was told, imitation of coitus. In its earliest expression, therefore, sex is associated with marriage, and the first sexual play occurs in imitation of one of the domestic routines of married life. It occurs in response to a cultural, and not to an instinctive, urge.

Girls and boys, the girls rather earlier than the boys, begin to perform the simpler and lighter tasks of household and kraal from about the age of seven. From then onwards till they are about fourteen, marriage games continue when the children are by themselves, and though within them sexual play begins to be indulged in for its own sake and not merely in imitation of adult behaviour, it is subordinate to the whole make-believe relationship of conjugality of which it forms a part. During the rainy months the girls visit the boys in the grazing grounds, bringing them balls of porridge as presents, which each gives to the boy she has chosen as her 'husband'. She also milks the goats for her 'husband' and may even bring him a gourdful of cow's milk from the kraal. The boys cut millet stalks in the gardens and after roasting and eating the immature grain send the sweet stalks with their outer husks removed to their 'brides'. Older boys also send their juniors with mud oxen and cows to one of the senior girls, who plays the part of mother-in-law. I was told that in these games sexual intercourse may take place, but is neither a usual nor a prominent feature.

Girls witness serious love-making and courtship earlier than boys. At dances small girls follow their more experienced sisters and cousins, imitating their movements during the dancing and afterwards sitting with them while the young men pay them compliments and try to persuade them to retire with them into the long grass. When a girl is about twelve or thirteen initiated boys begin to court her, and when she is about fifteen or sixteen she has at least one lover and probably one in each of the villages neighbouring her own. She passes through a succession of love affairs, besides more casual affairs. I doubt whether any girl in Nuerland goes to her husband a virgin.

As a rule boys are initiated from about fourteen to sixteen. Unlike the girls, whose social life develops slowly from childhood to marriage without any sudden change of status, the boys jump at initiation from the grade of boyhood to the grade of manhood, and the character of their social life is correspondingly transformed; though even before initiation boys make some adjustments in their way of life in anticipation of the status they will acquire when they have passed through the rites. In particular, they abstain from eating in the presence of unrelated girls. A small boy eats with his mother and sisters, but when he is about six he eats with the other boys of the household when the women folk have guests, lest they might feel embarrassed at the presence of a lad, though only a small one, and, bit by bit, he gets into the habit of eating with them regularly.

After initiation a lad takes on the full privileges and obligations of manhood in work, play, and war. Above all, he gives himself whole-heartedly to winning the favours of the maidens of his neigbbourbood. Courtship now rivals devotion to cattle as his major interest. In speaking of a recently initiated lad Nuer often say: 'And now he has become a man and will court the girls.' He takes every opportunity for flirtation which offers itself. His chances are chiefly at dances, and Nuer youths, for this reason, attend as many wedding dances and other drum-dances as they can in their district during the rains and the harp-dances at neighbouring camps in the dry season. In speaking of these dances young men speak always of the girls they will meet at them, of how the girls will admire their finery and their excellent dancing and display of spearmanship and duelling with the club, and they add: 'And then of course we will spend the night in courting.'

That Nuer do not attend dances chiefly for the dancing is shown by their lack of interest in organizing harp-dances in dry-season camps when it is unlikely that unrelated girls from other camps will be able to attend them. 'Who wants to dance with his sisters?' they ask. But when there is a chance of love-making Nuer youths, who appear so slothful and lethargic to the foreign traveller, think nothing of walking and running ten to fifteen miles to attend a dance.

When a dance breaks up, about nine o'clock at night, the youths seize the girls by their wrists and lead them apart. They then either walk about the dancing-ground in pairs and small groups, the youths and maidens hand-in-hand or with their arms round each other's waists, or they sit in small parties at the grass-fringed edge of the dancing-ground. They sit wedged together and exchange endearments. Nuer girls are attractive companions at any time and are enchanting when decked with flowers and ornaments and anointed with oil for dancing, and the young men are charming and indefatigable flatterers. Wooing in Nuerland is an arduous business. A youth must be profuse and tireless in pouring out compliments to the girl whose favour he solicits, and he often sits opposite her with a stick in his hand to make lines on the ground to mark each new compliment.

When these parties break up the youths and maidens pair and continue flirting tete-a-tete in the grasses in privacy. It rests entirely with a girl whom she goes with. She has her lovers who meet her whenever they can, at dances, at her father's home, and at trysting-places, and she will probably go with one of these. When several young men want to go with her they tell her to make her choice from them, for all those who have been sitting together with the girl belong to one dep, the fighting line of a village, and are therefore all kin who will not quarrel about a girl. A lover from a different village would not try to break into the circle once it has been formed. She makes her choice -- if she already has a lover in the dep she will choose him -- and the other youths move away. Apart from her established lovers, a girl has no difficulty in knowing if a man is particularly attracted to her by the way he dances and conducts his spear-thrusting and club-duelling exercises during the dancing. If she likes him also she can probably so arrange matters that he is able to seize her wrist when the dance is beginning to break up.

Intercourse does not necessarily take place when a youth and maid are alone together on the night of a dance. When the relationship between them is a luom buol, a dance love affair, or luom thura, a dancing-ground love affair, a more or less constant attachment, and not a luom goka, a love affair of the high grasses, casual lust, I was told that the girl is likely to refuse her favours, though he will entreat for them, unless she feels sure that he intends to marry her and has the cattle with which to do so, for no respectable girl wants to be a keagh, an unmarried mother. No attempt is made to conceal an attachment of this kind, which indeed imposes on the girl modesty and shyness towards her lover in the presence of other persons such as a bride is expected to show towards her bridegroom or a newly-wed towards her husband.

Parents are not cognizant of all the love affairs of their children, but if a girl forms a constant attachment she may tell her mother about it, and a father will probably hear of a similar attachment of his son. They are not likely to say anything unless there is danger of incest. All the young men of a hamlet or small village, who are kinsmen and dance together, know of one another's courtships and escapades. Likewise, all the girls know about one another's lovers and amours, for they also keep together at dances. The only person who may interfere is a brother in an affair of his sister, for her virtue is his responsibility, but he will only do so in certain circumstances. He keeps an eye on his sister and knows who is courting her, but he will only come between her and her lover if he suspects that she is having regular relations with a man without cattle or that she is giving herself to all and sundry.

It not infrequently happens that a girl becomes pregnant while still unmarried. If the young man has cattle he will be expected to marry her, and if she is not a profligate he will be glad to do so. If he has insufficient cattle he cannot do so, and though another man will not object to taking her as a wife, he is more likely to take her as a second wife than as a first wife, and he will pay fewer cattle for her bridewealth. It is therefore in the brother's interest to see that this does not happen. It is also in his interest to prevent his sister from becoming a wanton. A man does not expect his bride to be a virgin, but he does not care to marry a jade. A girl of easy virtue may find plenty of lovers but no suitors, and after bearing an illegitimate child is likely to become a concubine for the rest of her life, to the detriment of her family herd.

Therefore, if a youth takes a girl away from a dance to his dep and sits with her among his friends and other girls until he finds an opportunity to get her to himself he will not be molested, because her brother has seen her leave the dance in company, and by the time she is intimate with her lover he will be doing the same himself. But if a man is indiscreet enough to take her off by herself as soon as the dance is breaking up he is asking for trouble, though the brother may not say anything if the youth is a friend of his whom he knows to have cattle and serious intentions towards his sister. If the young man is a casual lover he may tap him on the shoulder with the butt of his spear, when he will run away; or even fight him. However, there need be no trouble if the conventions are observed.

Courtship seems to be freest among the Eastern Jikany. There love affairs are carried on more or less openly, and a youth need not fear the girl's brother so long as they are on friendly terms and he is discreet. The girls of this area are, however, said to be less free with their favours than those of the Lou tribe. They are exacting in their demands for fine speeches, but will not allow intimacy unless they are sure that pregnancy will be followed by marriage. The Lou girls are said to be easier and their brothers more difficult. To the west of the Nile, at any rate in some parts, it is said that a girl's brother has the right to take a male calf and a cow calf if he catches a man having relations with his sister, but this penalty seems only to be exacted when it is believed that pregnancy has ensued, and I was told that if the beasts have been seized they will be returned should it be found that she had not conceived. If she is pregnant, they will be kept pending marriage negotiations.

A youth may have several sweethearts in different villages and a girl several lovers in different villages. At this time of his life a young man models himself on the accepted pattern of what a young man should be to win the approbation of his sweethearts and the regard of girls generally. He likes to know that they are looking at him and saying about him, when they chat together and share their secrets, that he is a wut pany, a real man. He pays great attention to his appearance and takes every opportunity to excel in feats of endurance and courage. It is for the benefit of the girls that he leaps behind his oxen in dry-season camps, 'when the people have met together', and chants poems. When asked whether a man would chant if there were no girls near, a Nuer replied: 'And if there were no girls near, what would he chant for?' A youth who wants a girl in marriage goes to her village or camp in the evening and chants there for an hour or two. He knows that she will understand that the poem is about herself. Her relatives know why he has come.

A youth is particularly careful not to be seen eating by unrelated girls: 'If he is not making love to them, he may do so some time or to one of their relatives.' When I asked whether it would matter if your sisters saw you eating, the reply was, 'Do you make love to your sisters?' Food must never be mentioned in the presence of girls, and a man will endure severe hunger rather than let them know that he has not eaten for a long time. It is a strict rule of Nuer society that the sexes, unless they are close kin, avoid each other in the matter of food. Nuer do not go near persons of the other sex when they are eating. A man may mention food but not sexual matters before kinswomen, and he may mention sexual matters but not food before unrelated girls.

Girls are the arbiters of decorum, and the severest sanction of a breach of good form is their disapproval. Not only is the shame of it a sanction for etiquette, but it is a powerful influence in making a youth generous, respectful to his elders, dutiful to his parents and kinsmen, hospitable to guests, industrious, and brave. The girls on their side are anxious to earn the good opinion of youths by correct behaviour in the home and in society.

It will have been observed that it rests entirely with a girl whether she accepts a man's attentions and how far he presses his advances. A girl who is fond of a youth wants him to marry her. If he is philandering she will, if she has any regard for her chastity, be frugal with her favours. The talk between a youth and his sweet-heart is frequently the topic of marriage. He asks her whether she will marry him, and she says that she will if he has cattle and her parents consent; or he entreats her to allow intimacy, and she urges that she might become pregnant and he not marry her, and she would then be in trouble. However, if a girl is in love with a youth, and he has a winning manner, she may surrender to his pleading. Men often break the promises they make to girls when they want favours from them, and in looking for a wife a man may pass over all his sweethearts, past and present, and go with his friends to seek a spouse outside the circle of his usual acquaintances.

One reason why this sometimes happens is that a man's sweet-hearts are frequently of his own age and Nuer usually marry girls younger than themselves. The prohibition on marriage to the daughter of a father's age-mate also influences a man's choice of a wife. Nevertheless, it is probably more usual for a man to choose one of his sweethearts. Marriage is the purpose implicit in every romance.

Sometimes a girl herself makes a proposal of marriage. She goes with some companions of her sex to the kraal of her favourite and drives away several of his father's cows to her home. Her father knows what she wants when he sees her returning with the cows, and if he disapproves of the youth he will send them back. If he likes the young man he says nothing, and when several days have passed and the cattle have not been returned, the young man knows that the girl's people are willing to discuss the matter. A father does not care to refuse his daughter when she is very much in love with a man, even when he is not rich, in case she runs away from home or hangs herself. Another way in which a girl can make a public proposal of marriage is a custom of early dry-season camps. Youths of a camp take their favourite oxen to parade them, led by their younger brothers, round a neighbouring camp, while they chant poems behind them and make graceful leaps into the air (rau). A girl who loves a youth may on such an occasion seize his ox and remove its lead. By so doing she pledges the youths to return to a harp-dance on another day. She keeps the cord and attaches a metal ring to it. Its owner later sends a small brother to fetch it. This is tantamount to a proposal and acceptance of marriage, and if the young man has enough cattle the betrothal ceremony takes place soon afterwards.

The facts outlined in this section lead to two conclusions: that there is wide sexual freedom before marriage, and that sex life is from the beginning stamped by cultural interests. Apart from rules of incest, adultery, and good form, there are no checks placed on the expression of sex from its earliest manifestations. Nevertheless, even at the outset the compass is set towards marriage and children. Simulated coitus between children is part of a game of domestic and marital relationships. After initiation, young men make love to girls as much as they can, but though there is much casual intercourse it is considered rather gross, and the aim of both youths and girls is to form attachments of the lover-sweetheart kind, in which coitus, when it takes place at all, is only part of a more complex relationship. The lover-sweetheart relationship has within it the purpose or pretence of marriage. Very likely a particular courtship will not develop into marriage, but courtship is the recognized prelude to matrimony,nd if a youth wants favours from his sweetheart, he must persuade her of his intentions. A love affair tends, therefore, to be a marriage courtship, and for this reason the pattern of the husband-wife relationship in the first stage of married life intrudes into it, and the pair act towards one another with the conjugal reserve of this stage. So strong is the cultural idea of marriage that, though devoid of irksome restraint and inhibitions, the path of sex life runs from childhood towards that union and, though circuitous, leads always to wedding, home, and family. Marriage is the end of a full sex life. After he is married a man settles down to care of herds and gardens, and goes less and less to dances, and ceases to take much interest in girls. I was told that should he wish to have an affair with a girl, his wife would have no objection and would probably help him in it. Women, on the other hand, once they are married, ought not to have relations with men other than their husbands. Men now expect to marry younger than in the last generation, when, I was told, a man would not usually marry before he was 25 to 30. Fathers were wont to say that they would themselves marry again, for these young wives would in any case go to their sons when they were dead. At what age a youth marries today depends on the size of his family, his place in it, whether his father is dead, the size of his family herd, and other circumstances.

As a rule, girls marry round about 17 or 18, though one, sometimes sees an unmarried girl of over 20. If a girl is betrothed early the wedding and consummation ceremonies are delayed. Women, therefore, have their first children at an age when they are well fitted to bear them. So long as a girl is married to a man with cattle she has fairly free choice of a mate. Much depends on whether the girl's family approve of the man's family. In theory, the parents choose their daughter's husband and only formally ask her consent, which she should give in duty to her parents, for marriage is not her business but the business of her menfolk. In fact, it is very difficult for parents to force their daughter to marry a man she dislikes, and strong-minded girls stand up against family pressure on this issue.

In general, therefore, it may be said that if there is no kinship between a youth and a maiden and the youth's father has sufficient cattle, marriage is unlikely to be opposed by either family, unless there is bad blood between them. The first condition, however, makes it difficult usually for a man to find a mate in his own village, since, as we have seen, villagers are generally in one way or another kin. Also, a man is unlikely, except in parts of western Nuerland where some of the tribes are very small and there is much intercommunication between tribe and tribe, to marry outside his tribe, unless he lives near its border with another tribe, for he may then have relatives and friends on the other side of the border with whom he visits and on whom he can rely for help should difficulties arise about the return of his cattle in the event of divorce. Hence a man may generally be expected -- I cannot give figures for the distribution of marriages -- to take a wife from some village of his own tribe and wiin easy reach of his own village, that is to say, within his district or from among the people whom he habitually visits.

This fact, combined with the frequency with which Nuer live with their affines and maternal kin and their wandering and migratory tendencies, has produced a very great admixture within local groups of persons belonging to diverse lineages and tribal and foreign origins. It means also that, as I have already explained, any Nuer has kinship links of one kind or another with persons belonging to many different local communities. With each marriage these strands running from one community to another are increased and there results a complex network of kinship ties between members of opposed segments within the political structure.

II

Marriage among the Nuer is brought about by payment of bridewealth and by the performance of certain ceremonial rites. The rites cannot take place without the payments, but transfers of cattle do not by themselves bring about the union. Both are necessary, and they proceed in a connected movement towards the full establishment of the union. Each enforces and reinforces the other. The bride's people can, by holding up the rites, put pressure on the bridegroom's people to make the payments due to them, and the bridegroom's people can, by withholding the cattle, induce the girl's family and kin to advance the ceremonies. First one pedal is pressed down and then the other as the marriage is propelled to its appointed end, the birth of children and the sharing of a home. It is understood that payments should have reached a certain point before a certain rite is held, and the performance of the rite is a recognition of the transfer of cattle up to that point. Payments of cattle and marriage rites therefore te to alternate, though there is no fixity about the alternation and no marriage is exactly the same as another in this respect. The new social ties of conjugality and affinity are made stronger by each payment and by each ceremony, so that a marriage which is insecure at the beginning of the negotiations becomes surer with every new payment and rite; both sides, by the giving and receiving of cattle and by joint participation in the rites, becoming more deeply comitted to bringing about the union. Therefore a marriage which has reached the final rites may be regarded as a stable union and will generally prove to be so.

 The chief ceremonies are the larcieng, the ngut, and the mut: the betrothal, the wedding, and the consummation. All three are important public events in Nuer life, though the betrothal rites are not held on so large a scale to the west of the Nile as to the east. Preparations for them are made days, even weeks, ahead, and they are talked about, especially by the young people, long before they take place. They are usually held in the rains, for there is then plenty of millet for porridge and beer, and people have the energy of the well-fed and can travel long distances without fatigue and dance and make love with equal vigour. A whole district attends them, the mere coming together of so many people making marriage a memorable event. Neighbours thus bear witness to the creation of the new social ties and by their presence sanction them.

 Neighbours form the crowd at marriage feasts. They have no direct concern with the union. Apart from these people who attend the ceremonies for dancing and flirting and for the general sociability and excitement, are those who attend them for more serious purposes. It will be seen that there are always, besides prolonged discussions about bridewealth, sacrifices and other rites which have to be performed and which interest only some of the people present -- the families and kin of the bride and bridegroom. These are the rites which express the relations between husband and wife, husband=s kin and wife's kin, and between the kin on one side or the other and the ghosts and spirits of their lineage. Those who stand outside these relationships are only spectators and often pay no attention to the rites at all. It is the dance which gives to the ceremonies their popularity and publicity; it is the rites which express and bring about their purpose.

Generally, as we have seen, there has long been an understanding between the youth and the girl he wishes to marry and she has been his sweetheart, though sometimes a youth decks himself as a bridegroom and in the company of another youth, arrayed in the ornaments of a best man, tours the country-side in search of a bride. In either case, the youth does not ask for the hand of the girl without her consent. He and his friends must then ask her family and they consult their kinsfolk. They know what is going well before they are formally asked for her hand, so when a girl tells her menfolk in the byre that there are guests outside who wish to speak to them, the men know what they have come for. The suitor and his friends enter the byre and seat themselves to the right, the girl's people being seated to the left. They say that the girl has accepted them and ask whether the elders will accept them also. The elders ask them what cattle they have. This is the rietghok, the cattle talk. The best man answers for the suitor, who, to create a good impression, says as little as possible. Both wear skins to cover their genitals before possible future parents-in-law. The bridegroom's best man and two other friends accompany him through all the trials of marriage and take full advantage of the opportunities for love-making and courtship. The girl's people accept the suit in a preliminary way and the youths depart to eat at a neighbouring homestead, since the suitor cannot eat in the home of the bride even at this stage.

There will later be other and more formal and definite discussions about the cattle in the byre of the father of the girl. The suitor has in the meanwhile been able to consult his own family and kinsmen, and when he returns with his friends for further talks the cattle are more precisely specified and ear-marked for particular claimants. The girl's people are satisfied. They say that the marriage is finished and tell the bridegroom, as he can now properly be called, and his friends to bring the ghoklipa, the cattle of betrothal, on a certain day. The discussions are still in an early stage, and by 'finished' they mean only that they are prepared to continue negotiations on the basis of the demands already met and to hold the betrothal ceremony. Before the visitors rise to go various men who can claim distant cognatic kinship with the bride, too distant for them to receive assigned portions of the bridewealth, may ask for gifts, ranging from a 'cow' (which means a sheep or goat) to a spear. Some of their demands are at once satisfied, the spears being handed over there and then, while others are met with promises or evasions.

A betrothal ceremony is not necessary. It is possible to proceed at once to the full wedding ceremony, and this is sometimes done when the bridegroom is a rich man with plenty of cattle and the bride is a jut, a girl who has passed the usual age of marriage. Usually the betrothal ceremony is held in the rainy season and the wedding in the following windy season. If there is a longer interval it is generally due to the immaturity of the bride. A poor suitor may pay two or three cows to a man who is short of stock at the time in order to obtain a lien on his small daughter while he collects adequate bridewealth to marry her later. Were the suitor a richer man he would seek a bride among older maidens, and were the father a richer man he would not feel the need to betroth his daughter at so early an age. A nubile maiden would not be betrothed for several years to a poor man. Her brothers would not brook the delay, for they themselves want to marry with the cattle of her bridewealth. Moreover, she would almost certainly become pregnant by some lover.

The holding of the betrothal ceremony means that the marriage is provisionally agreed upon by both sides, and the transfer to the bride's family of the cattle of the betrothal, three or four to ten head, is a further acknowledgement of this understanding. Before the ceremony takes place it has been agreed upon in general terms how many cattle should eventually be handed over. The ceremony is held in the bride's home. When the morning work of the kraal is finished the bridegroom and his party drive before them the cattle of the betrothal, led by a fine ox, the pride of the herd, its horns decorated with tassels, for the bride's brother. They advance on the bride's village in war formation and continue their martial exercises in her father's kraal, chanting their war songs before the huts and byres, especially before the hut of the bride's mother, who must be shown particular respect. The bridegroom's girl relatives and friends arrive about the same time as the men and they also dance in the kraal. The youthof the bride's village then form their dep, village fighting formation, and start their own exercises and the girls of the village their dancing. Then the drums are brought out and general dancing begins. Towards sunset the betrothal cattle, which were left outside the village to graze, are brought into the kraal and tethered. Dancing, duelling, singing, and love making between the youths and maidens continue well into the night and all pay special attention to the bridegroom, resplendent with his ivory armlets and his tight-fitting armlet of brass rings and distinguished also by the wedding stick in his hand. Before middnight the father of the bride leads forth an ox which, with a ceremonial rubbing of ashes on its back, is dedicated to the lineage ghosts and spirits in a long address by the gwan buthni, a man of a collateral lineage who acts for his family on ceremonial ocassions as master of ceremonies. He teIls the spirits to take their ox and let the people be at peace. His address is followed by other speeches by old men of the bride's kin and perhaps by her father, all first rubbing ashes on the beast's back. The jicoa, the bridegroom's people, take no part in these proceedings, but the flesh the sacrifice is, with the exception of head, neck, and some of the entrails, their right, and if the ox is not to their liking they insist on a bigger one being sacrificed or, which amounts to the same thing from their point of view, being slaughtered for their dinner. When the addresses are finished the master of ceremonies of the bride's lineage, or her father or another of her senior kinsmen, stabs the ox to the heart with a single thrust. It stands for a moment and falls to the ground, those present watching to see if it falls cleanly. The bridegroom's people, often directed by the bridegroom, though he may not himself eat in the home of his future father-in-law, amid much shouting and chaffing, divide the meat among themselves, each kinsman receiving his customary share. The ribs and part of the back are taken next day by the visiting girls to their parents and elders in the bridegroom's village and the rest is eaten on the spot. The girls of the bride's village who, like its menfolk, receive little or none of the meat, are up half the night cooking porridge, preparing beer, and boiling the meat for their guests, for the girls of the bridegroom's party are too busy flirting with the youths to assist them.

In the morning there is more dancing and beer is served to the guests before they depart. Shortly before they go, the bridegroom, if he has not done so earlier, throws on to the threshold of his mother-in-law's hut, if she has not yet reached the menopause, a tethering-cord, as an earnest that the yangpal, a cow to prolong her fertility, will be paid. He will already have given her a present of tobacco.

The wedding takes place some weeks later, and in the meanwhile there are further discussions about bridewealth not only in the home of the bride's father but also in the home of her senior maternal uncle, who is responsible for the negotiations on the mother's side. His claims are less flexible and there cannot be much dispute about them, so it sometimes happens that they are settled provisionally in the father's byre, and that the final discussions with the uncle himself, who may live far away, are left till after the wedding or even till after the consummation. Some more cattle will probably be handed over before the wedding.

Between the betrothal and the wedding the bridegroom is lipe nyal, a man to whom a bride is affianced, but he and she are spoken of as man and wife and the bridegroom acts towards his in-laws with the full respect due from a son-in-law. From time to time he visits his bride's home in the company of his best man and other friends, and on these occasions he may try to have relations with her, but it will be difficult for him because he is closely watched and others probably share the hut in which he and she are sleeping. In any case he cannot enforce marital rights at this stage, and his only hope is to get his best man to persuade his bride to visit him in the gardens.

Both sides want to complete the marriage without undue delay. The bridegroom's people want their wife and the bride's people want their cattle so that they themselves can marry. They do not care to use the cattle of the betrothal for this purpose because these are only on pledge and, if negotiations break down, have at once to be returned, or others substituted if they have died. In the interval between betrothal and wedding ceremonies a penultimate agreement is reached about the cattle and both parties have had time to accommodate themselves to their new interrelationships. Neither party would pursue the marriage to the point of holding the wedding, with its expense and publicity, unless they were confident of the outcome.

Arrangements are made to hold the wedding on a certain day. In the homestead of the bride the reception, especially the beer, is being prepared, and in the homestead of the bridegroom there is much rejoicing, men and women chanting poems into the night. They also chant on their way to the wedding and during its celebration. The main features of a wedding are discussion about cattle in the morning and the invocation over the cattle of the bridewealth (twoc ghok), the wedding dance, and the wedding sacrifice, in the afternoon and evening.

Early in the morning the bridegroom's kin discuss the situation in his father's byre. They know what outstanding claims are likely to be advanced because they know the persons on the other side who stand in those relationships to the bride to which beasts are due by custom. They run over their herds and assign particular beasts to meet probable claims, so that no last-moment demand shall be made which they have not allowed for and cannot reject. Similar talks are going on among the bride's kin in her father's byre. They know more or less what animals the bridegroom can muster, and they have also to agree on the division of the bridewealth among themselves; the problem often being not so much the total number of beasts to be paid but to which of the bride's kin they shall be allotted. The bride's father will do his best to protect his son-in-law against too greedy kinsmen. As we have seen, the bridegroom's people have several times discussed the whole question of the bridewealth with the bride's people, but ere are certain demands not yet agreed to, or kept back till the last moment so that they can be exacted under threat of forbidding the wedding dance.

The older people of the bridegroom's kin go ahead of the bridegroom's party of youths and maidens to the bride's home to finish the discussions in the late morning and early afternoon. They are generally still arguing when the bridegroom's party arrives, the paternal uncles on both sides taking the foremost part, for it is thought impolite of the fathers to take too prominent a part in the discussions, especially if they are younger than the uncles. The bridegroom's kin sit on the right side of the byre and the bride's kin on the left side, as they would sit were a case being arbitrated between them by a leopard-skin chief. The byre has been swept clean in expectation of the guests, and ox-hides and mats have been spread on the floor. The bridegroom and his master of ceremonies and the bride's father and his master of ceremonies wear wild-cat skins round their loins to hide their nakedness, and the master of ceremonies of the bridegroom holds a wedding stick across his knees. After the involved Nuer greetings have been exchanged they begin the final cattle talk over their pipes, each claim being stated and restated and discussed in the deliberate Nuer way -- puff, puff, puff of tobacco, a few word then puff, puff, puff again. While the jicuong, the people with rights to cattle of the bridewealth, are developing their claims, first on the father's side, then on the mother's side, the master of ceremonies of the bride brings a tray on which are lumps of tobacco and an equal number of pieces of charcoal and hands these round to the bridegroom's senior relatives. The cattle talk, even at this stage, is often loud and it looks, till one is used to Nuer, as though agreement would be impossible.

While the discussions are going on in the byre, the youths of the bridegroom's village charge into the homestead, chanting and skirmishing as they come. They rush the kraal and the bridegroom hurls his spear at his mother-in-law's buor, while the girls of the bride's village attack the visiting youths in mock combat and try to catch the bridegroom and seize his wedding stick. If they succeed he will have to pay them a calf. The buor is a mud windscreen, such as every Nuer woman has in front of her fireplace outside her hut. It is the symbol of domesticity and of wifely status and is associated with the spirit of the husband's lineage. On the occasion of the marriage of a daughter of the hut the wind-screen is heightened, or a new one is constructed, for the bridegroom to spear, and some of his close kinsmen may spear it also. It is easily repaired. The spear belongs to the mother of the bride, but as it is a war spear one of the men of her homestead grabs it. The bridegroom has already given, or promised, her a pipe, tobacco, and a smaller spear, which she may give to a small son or keep for scraping hides. The bridegroom may also throw a spear into the threshold of the byre. This goes to his father-in-law. Other parties of youths from nearby villages are by this time beginning to arrive, for the wedding was announced by drums on the previous day. It is difficult for the older people, still talking in the byre and puffing away at their pipes and drinking beer, to hold up the dance any longer. They give permission for it to begin, and it continues for the rest of the afternoon and well into the night and is resumed on the following morning.

Before the dance begins, or as soon as it has begun, the kin on either side signify their approval of the marriage by calling out the spear-names of the clans or maximal lineages of the bride and bridegroom and invoking the ghosts of their ancestors to look upon the cattle of the bridewealth -- a rite which makes the ghosts partners to the union and witnesses of it. The master of ceremonies of the bride --his role is ritual and he has no part in the bridewealth talks -- rises and demands a cow and receives the promise of a calf or sheep. He then walks up and down the byre, brandishing his spear and delivering a long address. He shouts out his ox-name and spear-name, and he calls on the ghosts of the bride's ancestors to witness that she is married openly with fifty cattle (it is conventional to say this number) and not with shame and by stealth. He says that she will bear her husband a male child. He addresses also the bridegroom's kin, his own kin, and anybody else he feels inclined to bring into his spee, and while talking he pours beer and sprinkles a little tobacco on the floor of the byre, on its threshold, and on the hearth in the centre of it, asking God (Gwandong) to take his 'cow', the tobacco. Then the master of ceremonies of the bridegroom's family, whose role is also purely ritual, has his say, or be may speak first. He talks in much the same vein and also pours out beer and sprinkles tobacco as an offering as he walks tip and down the byre brandishing instead of a spear a wedding stick. The father of the bride may then speak and may be followed by a senior kinsman of the bridegroom. Afterwards people chant poems.

During the dance another rite, but not of the same importance, takes place. The father of the bride removes a tethering cord from one of the pegs in the kraal and throws it into the air between two lines of men drawn up for the purpose, the bride's relatives on one side and the bridegroom's relatives on the other. They try to hook it in the air with their spears and clubs, and whoever catches it may demand a calf or a goat from theopposite side, though he cannot be sure of receiving it.

Towards sunset, or on the following morning, the wedding ox, provided by the bride's father, is sacrificed by the master of ceremonies of her family or a senior kinsman. He rubs ashes on its back and speaks to it, saying: 'We do not kill you for an evil thing, we kill you about a good thing. Fall well.' It is a wedding ox and not a funeral ox. The meat, except for the head, neck, and a few other bits, goes to the bridegroom's kin who, as in the betrothal ceremony, divide the carcass, on the pattern of bridewealth distribution, between the kin on the father's side and those on the mother's side. The distribution of meat at these ceremonies depends on the number of relationships represented by persons or proxy, the number of persons standing in these relationships, and other circumstances. Most of it is taken back by the bridegroom's people to their homes for the older people who have not been able to attend the wedding and those who have remained to look after the herds and milk the cows. The rest is eaten othe spot.

A large part of the night is spent in dancing and flirting and love-making. The bride and the girls of her homestead are cooking while the bridegroom, who is fasting, is seeing that his companions are being properly looked after. On the following morning beer is served, pots being distributed to the bridegroom's kin-his father, his father's full brother, his father's half-brother, his paternal and maternal aunts, and his mother's full and half-brothers -- who share the beer with members of their age-sets. After a meal the youths resume dancing and their elders, fortified with beer, probably start once more on the seemingly endless cattle talks, for there are generally an odd claim or two outstanding, the discussion of which was interrupted by the wedding dance, though their settlement was assured before it began.

If the maternal uncle of the bride lives far away he may give a wedding dance on his own account and sacrifice an ox at it. He may even do this when the father and he are members of the same large village. The senior paternal uncle occasionally does the same if he lives far away and is the father's half-brother. The ngut does not conclude the marriage. It is the mut and the birth of a child which do this. But the chances are now greatly in favour of a successful conclusion, for had the bride's people not been satisfied with the bridewealth already handed over, or promised, they would not have allowed the dance to proceed. The wedding has also cost them a second ox for which there is no return in the event of the marriage not being consummated. Nevertheless, marriages do occasionally break up between wedding and consummation, though, in my experience, this is rare and is due to the reluctance of the bride rather than to objections or demands on the part of her family and kin.

The mut, the third of the three public marriage ceremonies, is the one which, at any rate among the eastern Nuer, makes the union legally binding.  After it the husband, as he can then be called, can claim compensation for adultery, which he could not have done before. Previously the bride's brothers did not feel it obligatory to prevent her from attending evening dances in the neighbourhood, though they well knew from their own experience that she was likely to have relations with her old sweethearts at them. Her future husband's people could not then complain if she attended these dances, whereas after the mut they would make an unpleasant scene were they to find her at one, for this ceremony makes man and wife, and the cattle which have been paid are no longer regarded as a pledge but as marriage cattle. They now say of the bride 'Te yang jokde', 'She has a cow (cattle) on her back.' Moreover, if cattle paid to the bride's family and kin die in their kraals before the mut -- and they may all die in a year of rinderpest --they have to be replaced by the bridegroom's people, whereas if they die after the mut they still count as part of the bridewealth and the husband's people do not have to substitute for them similar beasts. This distinction does not apply to animals killed by the bride's family and kin or which have been disposed of by them and have died outside their kraals, for these count as bridewealth before, as well as after, the consummation. On the other hand, any calves the cattle may bear before this ceremony count as original bridewealth and not as increment. Likewise, if the incomplete union is broken before the mut, all the cattle and their increase, including those which have died, must be returned, whereas in the event of divorce after the mut, the bride's people do not have to return animals which have died a natural death in their own kraals, and they have a right to retain two cows, the yang yani and the yang miemne, the cow of the skirts, the mark of married status, and the cow of the hairs, which are shaved off the bride's head at the consummation.

It is mut, therefore, which makes the union a contract. Consequently, it occasionally happens, when people are anxious to expedite the marriage, that the consummation takes place before the wedding. I heard it suggested that this should be done in the case of a youth who had been speared and could not take the bridegroom's usual part in weddings, and although it was decided to hold the wedding first, with the bridegroom as a spectator, no one suggested that in the circumstances a reversal of the ceremonies would have been improper. Mrs. Smith, of the American Mission, told me of a case of an elderly man who, desiring to marry a girl with the approval of her family but against her own wishes, prevailed on her relatives to rush her through the mut leaving the wedding to be held later.

The day of the consummation has to be fixed in advance because beer has to be brewed for the visitors. In the early morning the bridegroom goes with a company of the youths of his village to fetch the bride, his womenfolk remaining behind to prepare for their visitors. They chant on the way, for this is a happy occasion for the village. Sometimes they find on arrival that the bride's mother has prepared beer for them. They have to ask her permission to take her daughter away and she asks them for presents before she gives it, such things as a spear, armlets, a pipe, and tobacco. The young men promise to give her what she asks for and depart, escorting the bride and her girl companions, who have oiled and decked themselves with ornaments for the ceremony. They go chanting to the bridegroom's village, one of the poems often being a composition of the bride in honour of her future husband, and there is much horseplay between the sexes. When they near the village the young men go ahead and the girls are met by the youths of the village, who bring them into the kraal where they serenade the bridegroom's mother with poems outside her hut. The ceremony is mostly a female affair, the men looking on.

After a while a kinsman of the bridegroom places a tethering cord across the inner threshold of one of the huts and the bridegroom crawls over it, followed by the bride, the best man, and a special girl friend of the bride. This action is said to make the marriage fruitful. Then, towards evening, takes place the rite of consummation, though there is no invariable order of events in these ceremonies and no fixed time-table. The bride retires to a hut wearing a special goatskin cap and here the bridegroom joins her. His age-mates seek him out and say to him: 'Come now, let the people go to bed, come and loosen the bride's girdle.' He is bashful and gets the business over as quickly and inconspicuously as he can. He enters the hut and gives his bride a cut with a switch and seizes her thigh, she refusing his advances and crouching by the wall of the hut. He strikes her with a tethering-cord, snatches the cap off her head, breaks her girdle, and consummates the marriage. Reluctance is imposed on her by custom and she pretends to resist even when she has known her husband often before in the gardens. It is not expected that a bride will be a virgin. Wedding and consummation ceremonies are held even for a girl who is pregnant or one who has been divorced and is being married a second time if she has not borne children. They say that 'She has returned to maidenhood'. It is only divorced women who have led profligate lives who are not remarried with these ceremonies. Maidenhood is a social, not a physical, state.

His duty done, the bridegroom leaves the hut, sometimes the bride's girl friends rushing at him and beating him with their fists as he emerges. The rest of the evening is given to the favourite pastimes of Nuer youth, muong and lum, visiting with the girls and making love to them. There will be many youths present: the people of the bridegroom's homestead, his mother's kin, if they live near, youths of the village, and bands of youths from villages for miles around, for the mut is a popular ceremony and it is known that many girls will attend it. Then all retire for the night, the bride's companions sleeping in a hut reserved for them.

On the following morning take place three rites which may on no account be omitted, the sacrifice (which may take place the evening before), the lustration, and the shaving of the bride's head. The sacrificial beast should be an ox, but if the bridegroom's father is poor, and at this stage of the marriage he is likely to be hard up, the 'cow of the consummation' may be a goat, or even just beer. The bridegroom's master of ceremonies rubs ashes on its back, calls out his spear-name, and speaks of the beast and the bride, telling the spirits and ghosts of his lineage to witness the union and to bless it with sons so that the lineage may continue. He says to them, 'Now you see your ox; you see this maid; let her be a good wife; let her bear many children, many sons; let her work well in her husband's home, milk the cows, dry the cattle dung; let her be a faithful wife and not a profligate'; and so forth, asking them to make the union a lasting and happy one. He then spears the ox and it is cut up by the wife's people, the visitors, and divided among them in the customary portions, only the head, neck, and a few other pieces of meat going to the people of the bridegroom. The visiting maidens at once cook and eat the ribs, kidneys, and stomach, besides filling themselves with porridge and beer, the bride alone abstaining because she may not eat in the home of her mother-in-law. They take the rest of the carcass back to their homes for their elders. The master of ceremonies may perform another duty associated with his office in anointing the bride with butter. Her father will already have blessed her in this manner before she set out for her husband's home.

Now takes place the rite of lustration, the lak tetni ka cik, the washing of the hands with bracelets. The visiting maidens, the young wife's companions, sit in a hut and a pot of warm water is passed to them. One of them washes her hands in the water and then takes a bracelet off her arm, drops it into the pot, and passes the pot to one of the husband's kinsfolk outside, who, squatting in front of it, likewise washes his hands in the water, and then fishes out the bracelet. The pot is returned to the hut and a different maiden and a different kinsman repeat the action of the first pair. All the close kinsfolk of the husband-his father's brothers and sisters, his mother's brothers and sisters, and his own brothers and sisters, and so on-are supposed to receive a bracelet, but, in fact, persons standing in some of these relationships will be absent. Any person who can claim kinship with the husband can demand a bracelet. If a man's dip into the pot reveals a poor bracelet he does not hesitate to upbraid the girl who put it there and he may select a better one from those on her arm.

The concluding rite of the ceremony is the act from which it derives its name, the shaving of the wife's head (mut nyier) by a member of her husband's family. This may take place after the departure of her companions, for it is a domestic affair of the husband's family, of which the wife is now a member. The shaving of the head signifies this change in her status. People speak of the rite as 'the removal of the hairs of maidenhood', and they say afterwards of the girl 'Ca ciek', 'She has become a wife'. She is at the same time stripped of all her ornaments, which are divided among her husband's kin, and she is arrayed in new finery provided by her husband. She belongs to his, and not her father's, people now and it is for them to adorn her.

The mut is the consummation of marriage, but not its completion, which is the birth of a child. The young wife is now called ciek ma kau, a newly-wed. Her parents give her a hut of her own and a sleeping-hide, a brush, and a couple of gourds for ablutions. When her husband comes to visit her in her father's homestead he sleeps with her in this hut. She continues in all other respects to lead the life she led before marriage, and after her husband's visits she hangs up the hide and domestic utensils and sleeps with her unmarried sisters. On these visits her husband stays at a neighbouring homestead as he cannot eat in the home of his parents-in-law and ought not to be seen there at all. When someone tells the wife that her husband has come, so that she may prepare for him, she feigns annoyance or lack of interest, pretending that she is still unmarried, a shyness she keeps up with third persons, though she is at ease when alone , with her husband. When everyone is asleep he visits her and spends :he night with her, leaving before any of the bride's people are about. Her parents are supposed to know nothing of his visits, though, of course, they know all about his movements, and it is even said that his mother- in-law may rise especially early and squint through a crack in the door of her hut to see him depart. I was said that should he oversleep and his mother-in-law see his spears outside her daughter's hut, she makes them forfeit, and he would be ashamed to ask for them back. It is not till a child has been born that the husband is accepted by his wife's people as one of themselves. He is then the father of their daughter's child and through the child has a kind of kinship with them. Till this happens the husband continues to lead the life he lived before marriage, a bachelor life with his younger brothers in their father's byre. His wife visits him only on rare occasions and for a formal purpose, as when, at harvest time, she brings him coverings she has made for the grain on the drying-platforms, or when she takes him a bundle of well-cooked porridge made from the first millet of the year -- a pretty custom known as puthene kitan, honouring with porridge.

All are equally anxious for a child to be born, the husband and wife because they want a son, and the wife's parents and kin because they cannot, without risking complications dispose of the cattle of the marriage till a first-born completes the union. Those whose daughters they might wish to marry would not be happy about accepting such cattle as bridewealth in case they had suddenly to be returned to the husband. When a child is born the mother remains with her parents till she has weaned it. This is a suitable regulation, because after bridewealth has been paid the husband's father is likely to be short of lactating cows, while the wife's parents will have plenty of milk from their herd. If, for some reason, the wife goes to live with her husband before the child is weaned, it may not be weaned without the consent of her parents, and I have seen a husband pay several cattle to atone for contravention of this rule. A keagh, first child, belongs to cieng mandongni, the home of his maternal grandparents, and if he is weaned in his father's home he returns to live with them, a boy till he is initiated and a girl till she is betrothed. This is the rule, though there is variation in practice, depending on the ability of the maternal grandparents to support the child and on the relations between them and their son-in-law.

Shortly after the birth of her first-born the wife, now called paidap, a nursing mother, brings the baby to her husband's home and lays him in the ashes of the hearth in the centre of his grandfather's byre, a rite known as nong puka, the bringing to the ash. Beer has been prepared and is drunk by a few senior kinsmen of the husband who live in his hamlet. It is a domestic, and not a public, ceremony. The wife spends a few days in her husband's home, and returns with the child to the village of her parents. She has as yet no hut of her own in her husband's homestead.

When his first-born has been weaned the husband builds his wife a hut in his father's homestead facing the family kraal. He then goes to ask his parents-in-law for his wife. They do not deny him, even if, as is likely, some of the bridewealth cattle are still owing. They give her a horn spoon and a gourd and she takes these with her to her husband's home. The gift of a spoon is emphasized by Nuer in speaking of marriage, because it is a recognition that the woman is now, in the full sense, a wife, who will eat of the porridge of her own gardens with the milk of her own herd. She now milks her husband's cows instead of her father's and hoes the gardens of his home and not those of her childhood. Before she is given a spoon, even if she hoes a garden at her husband's home she takes the harvest back to her father, or she may live at her husband's home and cultivate in her father's village, if it is not far. It is only when a man's bride has borne him a child and tends his hearth that she becomes, in the Nuer sense, his wife. She then makes a mud windscreen, and the spirit of his lineage comes to dwell there. Later his father tells him to build a byre and gives him a few cows to start a herd.

The marriage has thus reached completion through many stages: betrothal ceremony, wedding ceremony, consummation ceremony, the birth of a child, the bringing of the first-born to his father's byre, and the presentation to the wife of a spoon as a sign of her domestic separation from her family. She comes to her husband's home not as a wife but as a mother whose breasts have suckled a child of their lineage.

III

Like many other African peoples the Nuer marry by the family and kin of the bridegroom handing over cattle to the family and kin of the bride. The marriage is brought about by this payment and by the performance of the series of ceremonial acts I have just described. These ceremonies and payments of cattle proceed pari passu as inter-connected movements towards the completion of the union. It should be remembered that Nuer do not consider the union to be complete till a child has been born of it, even though spouses may continue to cohabit where the union proves to be unfruitful.

I first describe the principles on which bridewealth is paid. These can be simply stated. In actual marriages the payment and distribution of the cattle may be complicated, but if one asks a Nuer how, on marriage, the bridewealth is divided, he gives at once its ideal distribution and it will be found that actual distribution in any particular marriage is made to approximate as far as possible to this ideal. Consequently, once the general principles of transfer are understood, the distribution of cattle on any particular marriage can be readily understood also. Bridewealth should consist of 40 head of cattle. Among the eastern Nuer 20 are said to go kwi gwan, to the father's side, and 20 kwi man, to the mother's side, of the bride. Equal division between the bride's paternal kinsmen (including her father) and her maternal kinsmen (including her mother) is thus the first rule of distribution. Of the 20 beasts which go to the father's side, l0 remain with the father (or his sons) and 10 are divided among his family (his parents, brothers, and sisters); and of the 20 beasts which go to the mother's side, 10 remain with the mother (or her sons) and 10 are divided among her family (her parents and brothers and sisters). The second rule, therefore, is that the cattle are distributed in fixed proportions between three families: the bride's own family, her father's family, and her mother's family.

The bride's own family receive 20 head of cattle, which are known as the ghok dieth, the cattle of parenthood. The families of the bride's father and of her mother each receive 10 head of cattle, known collectively as the ghok cungni rar, the cattle of the outside claimants, i.e. those who are outside the bride's own family. It should be noted in the diagram below, in which these distributions are shown, that the bride's mother's sons count as maternal relatives while her father's sons by a different mother count as her paternal relatives.

However, a Nuer does not state such distributions in terms of families but, when he is discussing the mode of distribution, in

Figure 1 goes here.

terms of individual relationships and, when he is discussing particular marriages, in reference to persons standing in these relationships. Relationships are defined by reference to the bride. A Nuer counts the ideal distribution as follows:

___________________________________________________

On the paternal side                                                    Cattle

father                                                                               8           

father's son                                                                        2

father's elder brother by the same mother                            4                                      

father's brother by a different mother                                    3

father's younger brother by the same mother                         2

father's sister                                                                        1

                                                                                          ______

                                                                                           20

_____________________________________________________

On the maternal side

mother                                                                                  3

brother by the same mother                                                    7

mother's elder brother by the same mother                               4

mother's brother by a different mother                                      3

mother's younger brother by the same mother                           2

mother's sister                                                                          1

                                                                                              ____

                                                                                                20

___________________________________________________

I do not guarantee that if one were to ask any Nuer from the eastern part of their territory how bridewealth is distributed in his country he would receive a list identical with the one I have given, for there might be shifts here and there of a cow or an ox, but the balance and proportions would be as I have recorded them. Among the western Nuer, when a man speaks of >the cattle on the paternal side= and the >cattle on the maternal side= his description is more in accord with realities because he includes among 'the cattle on the paternal side' those beasts which go to the bride's mother and uterine brother, since the father gets them if he is alive. The western Nuer way of counting bridewealth is therefore less symmetrical than the eastern way of counting it. This difference is superficial, because in all parts of Nuerland the same relationships are a title to approximately the same number of cattle.

The persons who have, in virtue of one of these emphasized relationships, a right (cuong) to cattle are called the ji cungni, the people with a right. They say: Wanlen a cuong', 'The maternal aunt has a right'; 'Wac a cuong', 'The paternal aunt has a right', and so on. The cattle which the various relatives of the bride will receive in a perfect distribution, each according to his right, are indicated below:

Figure 2 (to be provided in class)

It must be added that the four grandparents of the bride are entitled each to a cow, called wangnen, in certain circumstances, but they are not mentioned in the distribution given above because it is assumed that by the time their granddaughter is old enough to be married they will be dead. It is a rule that in the event of any claimant being dead his, or her, sons inherit the right to cattle. Thus the cattle of a gwanlen (father's brother) go to the gaatgwanien (father's brother's sons), the cattle of a wac (father's sister) go to the gaatwac (father's sister's sons), and so forth. But whereas cattle must be paid, whatever may be the circumstances, to the names of these kinsmen, a grandparent only receives a cow if he, or she, saw the bride before he, or she, died. It is possible, therefore, for there to be four wangnen claims, but there are generally only one or two at most. The wangnen of the father's father goes to one of his sons by a different mother to the father's mother. The wangnen of the father's mother goes to one of her sons other than the father. These are the wangnen kwi gwane, the cows of the grandparents on the paternal side. There may also be two wangnen kwi mane, cows of the grandparents on the maternal side, that of the mother's father going to one of his sons by a different mother to the bride's mother's mother, and that of the mother's mother going to one of her sons. Thus in the diagram below, A's cow goes to M, B's cow goes to N, C's cow goes to 0, and D's cow goes to P. As will be explained later, these cattle of the grandparents are not paid in addition to the forty already listed.

Figure 3

Some features of this mode of distribution are worth attention. The cattle are divided among both paternal and maternal relatives of the bride and this bilateral distribution may be wrongly interpreted. It is by no means simply a recognition of the bride's kinship to certain of her kinsfolk, but is also an acknowledgement of obligation between siblings and towards affines. The payment to the bride's paternal uncles is not only an expression of the relationship between a father's brother and his brother's daughter, but also of that between brother and brother. A man marries from the family herd in which his brothers have equal rights with himself, and his wife is, as the brothers say, 'our wife', because she was married with 'our cattle'. She acts in domestic duties as a wife to her husband's unmarried brothers as well as to her husband, although she cohabits with him alone, and her children are 'all I our children' since they are 'children of our cattle'. All the brothers therefore have rights in the daughters of each. Brothers stubbornly insist on these rights, and it often happens that a girl's paternal uncle proves to be the most serious obstacle to bringing about her marriage, for he will not hesitate to veto it if he thinks he is not getting his fair share of the cattle. Every Nuer knows exactly where he stands in such matters, for even children know how bridewealth ought to be distributed and can at once tell roughly what cattle each kinsman will receive on the marriage of the daughter of one of them.

Likewise the transfers made to the bride's maternal uncles are not only an expression of the relationship between a mother's brother and his sister's daughter, but also of that between a man and his wife's brother. Nuer stress that at marriage only part of what is due to the bride's family is handed over to them and say that the rest will be paid when their daughter has borne female children and these children are married. The extra-family kinsmen, the paternal and maternal uncles and aunts of the bride, receive their share of her bridewealth once and for all at her marriage, often at the expense of the intra-family kinsmen, her parents and brothers and sisters, who will, in compensation, receive in addition to what is paid to them at her marriage some ten head of cattle on the marriage of each of her daughters. It must not be forgotten that the maternal uncles and aunts of the bride are the brothers-in-law and the sisters-in-law of her father, and that the part of her bridewealth paid to them is to some extent considered as a deferred payment incurred at her mother's marriage. Hence Nuer, when counting the cattle to be paid on marriage, conclude by saying: 'And when the bride's daughters are married more cattle will be paid to their mother's brothers.' It should be noted also that the sibling relationship is acknowledged in the distribution of bridewealth on the maternal as on the paternal side. All the brothers have rights in their sister and in that part of the bridewealth of her daughters which is due to their family. Here again, even small boys know their rights as maternal uncles, or as future maternal uncles, and youths regard them as policies which will fall due in the future and enable them to marry wives themselves. We must distinguish, in discussing the transmission of bridewealth among the Nuer, between the transfer of cattle by the bridegroom's people and its distribution among the kinsfolk of the bride. The bridegroom=s people are only interested in this distribution in so far as it affects the total of cattle they will have to pay. They come to the lengthy negotiations which precede the wedding dance prepared to pay a certain number of beasts, and so long as their estimate is not exceeded it is a matter of little interest to them what arrangements about their distribution the kinsmen of the bride make among themselves. The bride's father must make his own terms about the distribution with his brothers and sisters, and the bride's senior maternal uncle with his brothers and sisters. The necessity for them to come to some agreement among themselves will be evident later.

Another important feature of bridewealth distribution is the distinction made between sons of the mother (gaatman) and sons of the father (gaatgwan). This distinction is made not only between the full and half-brothers of the bride but also between the full and half-brothers of her father and mother. In the generation of her uncles the differentiation between full and half-brothers is indicated by stating whether they are uncles kwi mane, on the mother's side, or kwi gwane, on the father's side; the terms kwi dwiel on the side of the hut, and kwi luak, on the side of the byre, being commonly employed as alternative indications. The statement of the ideal distribution thus assumes polygamous families.

When the father of the bride is alive the distinction between her full and half-brothers is only formally represented in the division of her bridewealth because the cattle given to any of her brothers join their father's herd and he uses them as is customary, which means that they are held as family stock from which each son marries in order of seniority, being given by his father for this purpose what cattle are available, without regard to the title by which they entered the herd. Thus one son may marry with cattle which were allotted to another son in the distribution of their sister's bridewealth; so the fact that on the marriage of one of the sisters several cattle are allotted to the uterine brother does not mean that he can dispose of them as he pleases, and he would not, were his father alive, be able to reserve them for his own marriage exclusively. If the bride's half-brother is older than he the half-brother will use some of these cows to marry and no objection can be raised to his doing so. To object would, in Nuer eyes, be a grave breach of custom amounting to the breaking up of the family and home and the severing of vital bonds of kinship. Even after the father is dead the herd ought to remain common stock, and all cattle accruing to him and his sons on the marriages of his daughters ought to join it for the benefit of all his sons alike, so that they may marry from it in order of seniority. If there is only one widow this is likely to happen, but when there are several widows the family often breaks up, the widows going with their children to live in different places, and the herd may in course of time become scattered. Eventually the family, especially the composite or polygamous family, ceases to have corporate interests in a common herd and splits into a number of property units, each brother having a family and herd of his own. The brothers then live in separate homesteads and sometimes in separate villages, and the cattle they receive as paternal and maternal uncles therefore join different herds. Often some of the brothers are by this time dead and the cattle then go to their sons, whose ties with their paternal uncles are weaker than those uniting brothers.

In reckoning the cattle which have to be transferred Nuer distinguish between those beasts which receive a precise linguistic indication and the remainder. Those terminologically differentiated are regarded as the minimum payment on which negotiations can start. Whatever else the bride's family and kin get, they must get certain animals or the marriage cannot take place. Hence, these basic claims take precedence and their titles are always the first to be acknowledged. The conventional order is as follows:

1. wangnen gwane, the cows of the paternal grandparents.

wangnen mane, the cows of the maternal grandparents.

2. yang gwane kene doude, ke thakde, the cow of the father with its calf, and his ox.

yang mane kene doude, the cow of the mother with its calf.

3. yang gwanlene kene doude, ke thakde, the cow of the paternal uncle with its calf, and his ox.

 yang nara kene doude, kene thakde, ke puangde, the cow of the maternal uncle with its calf, and his ox, and his puang (ox).

4. dou (nac) waca, the calf (heifer) of the paternal aunt.

dou (nac) manlene, the cow (heifer) of the maternal aunt.

5. yang kwoth gwande, the cow of the father's spirit.

yang kwoth mande, the cow of the mother's spirit.

6. thak deman, the ox of the uterine brother.

thak gat gwan, the ox of the paternal half-brother.

It will be observed that these titles to cattle are in pairs of collateral relationships. If a person standing in any one of the relationships is dead, his claim takes precedence over claims of the living, and for this reason they generally begin the tally with the wangnen cows of the grandparents. 'First the claims of the ghosts must be settled, then we can settle the claims of us who remain alive.' In actual payments of bridewealth the fact that the kin of the bride are able to claim one or more cows of this title does not mean that they receive more cattle on this account than they would otherwise have done. Circumstances, to be discussed later, fix the total payment within approximate limits known to both parties to the contract, so that all that happens is that a cow which would in any case go to one of the bride's uncles as part of his portion of the bridewealth is handed over to the name of a dead grandparent.

A few words may be said about the yang kwoth, cow of the spirit, which figures in most bridewealth transactions. This animal is paid in honour of the spirit of the father or of the mother of the bride. The spirits are of various kinds. If one of them is a totem and is associated with a special colour, the bride's parents will endeavour to obtain from the bridegroom's kin a cow of that colour, e.g. a tawny cow for the lion-spirit and a brindled cow for the crocodile-spirit. A cow so dedicated to a spirit must remain in the kraal of the parents, and now and again they rub ashes along its back and pour milk over its tethering-peg and invoke the spirit. The spirits of the family are thus made cognizant of the marriage and are a party to the pact, just as the ghosts are informed of what is taking place and are invoked as witnesses at the wedding ceremony. Spirits and ghosts are jicungni, claimants entitled to a share in the bridewealth, and were they to be denied their right the marriage would not be fruitful. When each parent has a different spirit both must be honoured by having a cow of the bride-cattle dedicated to it, though one spirit may receive a cow on the marriage of one daughter and the other on the marriage of her sister. Here again, this does not necessarily mean that the family of the bride get an extra cow, for generally one of the cows they would in any case have received is dedicated to a spirit and paid in its name. Sometimes, however, the bride's people do not put forward the claim till the end of the marriage negotiations, when the bridegroom's people think that a settlement has been reached and have already offered as many cattle as they are prepared to give. It is more difficult for them to refuse an extra cow to a spirit than to a man. If they are wise they will get to know all about the spirits of the bride's family-there may be more than two-and anticipate the claim by keeping a cow in reserve to meet it. Generally these essential claims are settled at the first bridewealth discussions held in the byre of the bride's father.

The maternal side of the family have a prior claim to consideration in that, as already explained, their portion is regarded to some extent as a deferred payment standing over from the marriage of the bride's mother. If there are not enough cattle to satisfy everyone at the time of the marriage the paternal relatives are usually prepared to allow the bridegroom to remain for some years in their debt, but the maternal relatives are less willing to forgo immediate satisfaction. The maternal kinsmen cannot make exorbitant demands because they have only a right to a conventional proportion of the bridewealth and the approximate number of cattle to be paid to them is therefore determined by the total number to be paid all round.

In marriages today the actual payments and distributions of cattle to definite persons, as distinct from the ideal allotment of fixed portions of the bridewealth to relationships, vary according to circumstances, the chief of which, apart from the relative desire of both parties to bring about the union, are the wealth in stock of the Nuer as a whole, the resources of the bridegroom's family and kin, the number of claimants and the shares allotted to them in other marriages, and the configuration of the bride's family.

There is good reason to suppose that till thirty to forty years ago cattle were so plentiful in Nuerland that bridewealth was paid at the ideal rate of 40 head. In recent years the herds have diminished through rinderpest, and raids on Dinka stock, the traditional means of recuperation, are prevented by the presence of the Anglo-Egyptian government. Diminution has been fairly uniform throughout the whole of Nuerland, and it would today in all parts be impossible for a man to raise as many as 40 head of cattle for marriage. The usual payment is from 20 to 30. It has been mentioned that there are a number of relationships with basic rights and the persons standing in these relationships, or representing those standing in them, must be guaranteed their portions to the number of cattle enumerated in the list presented above. Consequently, even if there are no wangnen and spirit claims, the bridewealth cannot fall to less than 16 beasts. On the other hand, it cannot rise to more than the bridegroom and his people possess or are prepared to give, what they are prepared to give being mainly decided by what they possess. The bridewealth will therefore be somewhere between these two points. Now, the bride's family know fairly accurately what cattle are available and state their demands in the light of their knowledge, and the bridegroom's family know who are likely to put forward claims and, also, how many cattle they can muster, and they make their offer accordingly.

It is evident from the lengthy discussions that continue for hours at a time, and sometimes for days on end, that there is no absolutely fixed payment. What happens is that the basic claims are first settled in a preliminary manner, for there can be little argument about these, and further demands are then debated. The main concern of the bridegroom's party is to conduct the negotiations in such a way that they will not have promised up to the estimate they have allowed for before an adequate number of cattle have been allotted to all the persons who are beyond question entitled to them. They usually aim at settling all the outside claims before tackling the full family claims, in the settlement of which they may expect some forbearance. The family are as anxious as the bridegroom's people to settle the outside claims, for they are claims on the bride's father as much as on the bridegroom, and until they are met he cannot reap any benefit himself from the marriage. To facilitate their settlement the family are generally prepared to forgo some of their own rights and the expectation of full immediate payment.

The discussions are in terms of particular cattle. The bridegroom's people offer certain animals and these animals are known to the bride's people. The spokesman for the bridegroom says, for example, that they have a brindled cow and its calf in such-and-such a kraal, and the spokesman for the family replies that these will be the cow of the mother and its calf. The bridegroom's maternal uncle says that he will give a white cow with a black head and rump and its calf, and a white-faced ox, and the people of the byre decide that the cow and its calf will be the cow of the father and its calf, and the ox will be the ox of the uterine brother. To follow these negotiations it must be remembered that they have been preceded by lengthy private discussions by each party among themselves. The bridegroom's party have agreed among themselves which particular animals each is willing to contribute,what they intend to offer the bride's people, what claims are likely to be put forward, and how they can be met. The bride's party have discussed what animals the other side possess, what they are likely to offer, and what they themselves want. The haggling at the final meetings between the two parties is on the surface and concerns only marginal beasts which the bride's party hope to obtain above what the bridegroom's party wish to give. It is not really greed on one side or parsimony on the other, but part of the traditional procedure of marriage. Both sides are expected to behave in this way in marriage negotiations.

As long as the girl's family receive a good number of the cattle before she has passed through the final ceremonies and can expect that the remainder will eventually be paid they will not press for settlement. Nuer can be very generous in this matter, and if a son-in-law is respectful and industrious they will not break the union because he takes a long time to pay the final cows, for marriage is not simply handing over a girl in exchange for cattle but is the creation of a series of new social relationships which, once formed, are not easily or lightly severed, especially when the union is completed by the birth of a child.

Sometimes the final cows are never paid. If the husband has cattle and his wife's brothers want to marry, they may raid his herd and take the beasts owing to them. But debts of this kind are subject to a rule of limitations. If the cattle have not all been paid before the eldest son of the marriage is initiated into manhood the debt lapses. Therefore a brother tries to obtain the remainder of his sister's bridewealth before this happens. An illustrative case occurred in western Nuerland in 1936. An initiated lad, who had been working for me, brought back three cows to add to the family herd in his father's kraal and his maternal uncle seized one of them on the grounds that his mother's bridewealth had not been fully paid. The elders of the village counselled its return, saying that the calves would die, and their advice was taken. The opinion expressed on this occasion was that when a son is initiated he becomes part-owner of the family herd and that a maternal uncle cannot take cattle from the herd of his sister's son in payment for his sister's marriage. Also, if cattle are owing, claimants cannot take them from the bridewealth of a daughter of the union, that is to say, from cattle allotted to the bride's family. They get their due portions from the daughter's marriage, but 'the cattle of a mother and the cattle of her daughter may not meet'. It is thought that the daughter would be barren were this to happen.

Distribution, as distinct from the total transfer, is also affected by the number of persons who demand cattle. There may be several persons standing to the bride in any given relationship. If, for example, there is only one paternal aunt, she gets her cow on the marriage of each of her brothers' daughters. If, on the other hand, there are several paternal aunts, they take it in turn to receive the cows due to that relationship. Difficulties are sometimes settled between two claimants of like relationship to the bride by one of them taking a cow and the other its first calf. Sometimes they take it in turn to receive their due, and, at the same time, admit the rights of the others to a calf each. In this way each claimant may ultimately receive part of the bridewealth on each occasion of its distribution. On the other hand, there may be no person in the relationship entitled to cattle. In this case, as already explained, a lineal heir is entitled to the beasts; but a collateral kinsman may not inherit. If there is neither a claimant nor a lineal heir other relatives on that side of the family receive larger shares than they would have expected had there been either. To reach an understanding of any actual distribution it is often necessary to relate it to distributions at other marriages, for, especially today when cattle are scarce, consideration will always be given, in seeking a fair agreement, to rights claimed or forgone in previous, and to expectations in future, marriages of daughters of the family and kin.

Paternal kinsmen genealogically farther removed from the bride than those indicated by specific kinship terms (relationships with a fixed title to bridewealth) may claim some small gift, such as a sheep, goat, or spear, in their own right from the bridegroom's people. Though these casual claims count as part of the bridewealth in that their return can be asked for in the event of divorce, their settlement is regarded more as a courtesy than as an obligation. A borderline case between bride-cattle proper and such small gifts to distant kinsmen is that of the calf, called karthar among the western Nuer, which may be claimed by a collateral kinsman who is a patrilineal descendant of the bride's father's father's father. This payment is sometimes made, as a sign that the patrilineal limit of bridewealth claims has been reached and that no demands will be accepted from collateral kinsmen tracing their common descent with the bride from an ancestor yet farther removed.

Figure 4

However, any cognatic kinsman up to six or seven generations removed from a common ancestor with the bride may attest his kinship by asking a small gift, and it will not be refused. This privilege, which is not widely exercised, includes also natural and affinal kin. I have seen a bride's maternal uncle's natural (not legal) son and a bride's paternal uncle's wife's brother demand, and given, spears at marriages. The master of ceremonies of the bride's family is always given a calf, sheep, or goat, known as 'the cow of the spear' (with which he made the invocation).

As said above, actual distribution of bridewealth among persons depends also on the configuration of the bride's family. At this point it need only be said that distribution on the marriage of a daughter born of a simple legal union is the pattern for distribution at marriages of daughters born of other kinds of union. We need only note further, that when the genitor of the bride is a different person frost, her pater, as is often the case among the Nuer, he has a right to a cow, 'the cow of the begetting', and that this takes precedence over all other claims. If he has also brought up the bride his right is more extensive. I conclude this section on bridewealth with three illustrations of actual payments and distributions at the present time. The first is from the Lou tribe of eastern Nuerland, the second from the Dok tribe of western Nuerland and the third from the Leek tribe of western Nuerland.

Figure 5

It will be observed from these two examples that in spite of smaller payments today the balance of distribution between paternal and maternal relatives is preserved. It will be noted also that smaller bridewealth does not mean that the rights of the family take precedence over those of the extra-family kinsmen. On the contrary, the family bear the greater proportional loss. In the Lou marriage the family received only 10 out of 23 beasts and in the Dok marriage 8 out of 22 (the calf received by the master of ceremonies in each, case not being included in the reckoning). The uncles and aunts must always be satisfied and their claims settled first, so that if there is to be a loss or debt the family must bear it. This conclusion was borne out by records of payments in other marriages.

I now examine in greater detail a payment of 23 beasts in a marriage in the Leek tribe to show the kind of considerations which affect distribution of bridewealth in particular marriages. At the time of my inquiries the marriage had been consummated but a child had not been born.

Figure 6

Pauk, the biological father of the bride, received three beasts in addition to 'the cow of the begetting'. There were two reasons for this generosity: he had brought the bride up from birth, and he was living with her mother and kept his cattle with hers. He was, in fact, acting as husband and father in the bride's family, and since he had no family of his own the bride's small brothers (not named in the chart) were regarded as his heirs. He had begotten them also. So the family received in fact eight beasts and not just the four shown in the chart, which, the father being dead, were allocated to the names of father and mother jointly. It was agreed also that the bride's eldest brother should receive a cow (not listed in the chart) before the eldest son of Nyanciou's marriage to Panyban is initiated. Rwac, the bride's paternal uncle, received in addition to the three animals held to be the right of the paternal uncle in the discussions preceding the marriage a fourth beast, the cow of the paternal aunt, since there was no one standing in this relationship to the bride. This was not an inherited right but a device for ensuring that the father's side to the marriage received their fair quota of cattle. Such adjustments are common in division of bridewealth. In other respects distribution on this occasion was normal and requires no further comment.

It may be noted, however, that though the allocation of cattle was as I have just stated it the full brothers of the bride's mother had not yet received their shares of the bridewealth. The reason for this was that the bride was not living with her paternal kinsmen, who took little interest in her, but she and her mother were living in the village of her maternal kinsmen, from which she was married. The paternal kinsmen therefore in this instance received the cattle immediately available for distribution. Had the bride been living with her paternal kin the maternal uncles would not have been so accommodating. It may further be noted that whereas the maternal half-uncles had received their share of the cattle, the senior maternal full uncle had received up to the time when my inquiries were made none of the animals promised to him and the junior maternal full uncle was still owed a heifer. The maternal half-uncles had to be given their shares first because if any debt is incurred it must be borne by those primarily responsible for the marriage agreement and chiefly in control of its arrangements, in this case the bride's full maternal uncles in whose village she was living. The single example I have given will, I hope, be sufficient to show how various circumstances may influence any actual distribution of bridewealth.

IV

In the account I have given of bridewealth it was brought out that there are two connected, but separate, movements in its transfer: the payment by the bridegroom's kin to the bride's kin, and the further division of the cattle among the bride's relations. I feel that it would be profitable here to make some further comments on the first movement in order to elucidate the general functions of bridewealth in Nuer society. It is no longer necessary to show that the African payment of bridewealth is not a purchase. But to say that it is not price or purchase is not to say that the objects handed over have no significance outside the particular purpose they serve in bringing about a union. Cattle for Nuer are one of the main sources of food and they supply many other domestic requirements, they have a prestige value, and they have religious importance. The payment or receipt of bridewealth changes a man's fortune in a very material way. The bridegroom's family are impoverished, sometimes to the point of privation, though their kinsmen and affines will help them if they reach this point; while in the bride's home the milk-gourds and butter-gourds are full. A man who receives only one cow of the bridewealth has in it the promise of a herd.

It is for this reason that Nuer found it difficult to understand what I meant when I told them that among my people we marry without paying bridewealth: 'It does not matter. After all, every country has its own customs. But is it right that the father and mother of your wife should go empty-handed when you marry, or is it better that they should be full, that the father should be full and the mother full?' Of the neighbouring Anuak people, who marry with beads and spears, they say: 'Of what use are these things? Can people live on them?' In making their demands on the bridegroom's people the bride's people try to obtain above all lactating cows and their calves or heifers in-calf so that they may enjoy immediate benefits from the transaction.

Nevertheless, Nuer men show greater interest in the bridewealth character of cattle than in their nutritive qualities. It is not that having great nutritive value they acquire through it a general social value, become a standard of worth, and are therefore employed in ritual, for indemnification of injury, and as a means of acquiring a mate. It is rather that their use as bridewealth gives them their supreme value in Nuer eyes. Cattle stand for a wife and are therefore the most important thing in a Nuer's life, because a wife means to him his own home and that he becomes a link in the lineage by fathering a son. Nuer do not grudge the loss of a herd to obtain a wife. They lose cattle, but the wife will bear them daughters at whose marriages the cattle will return and sons who will herd them.

It is therefore a common-sense inference that payment of bridewealth has a stabilizing action in marriage. If the wife leaves her husband the cattle will have to be returned, and as it would be always unpleasant, and often difficult, to return them it might be supposed sed that the wife's family will use their influence to make her remain with her husband. There is some truth in this supposition, for Nuer know only too well the confusion, and consequent resentment, that may result from the dissolution of a marriage: 'But with us Nuer, if a wife leaves her husband what will his kinsmen do? For they have given some of the cattle to her paternal uncles, some to her maternal uncles, some to her paternal aunt, and some to her maternal aunt. A wife should be obedient to her husband, for she has been married with cattle.'It must be remembered that not only have the cattle to be returned but their calves also -- I have known a divorce in which one of the bridewealth cows had to be returned with no less than eight calves -- and as these may have been widely dispersed much altercation may ensue. Indeed, one of the earliest. British officers in Nuerland wrote that 'the system of marriage among the Nuer is the cause of nearly all their quarrels and troubles'.* [* Bimbashi H. Gordon, Sudan Intelligence Reports, June 1903, NO- 107]. Everyone concerned with the marriage stands to lose by its dissolution and they will try to prevent divorce Nevertheless, it can only be accepted that payment of bridewealth stabilizes marriage to a very limited degree. That this is so can best be understood by considering the question in relation to what happens at divorce. The marriage tie is severed by the return of the bridewealth because either the wife has died childless or her husband's people give up their rights in her. In either case, if there are no children, all the cattle have to be returned, except 'the cow (ox) of the hairs and the cow of the skirts',** unless they have died a natural death in the homesteads of the recipients.

** [ According to my own information these two animals are always retained by the bride's parents should the marriage be broken up after the consummation ceremony and are regarded in some part as payment for loss of the bride's maidenhood at the consummation and in some part as compensation for the expenses of the nuptial ceremonies. Mr. H. C. Jackson (Sudan Notes and Records, VOL vi, 1923, p. 155) says that they are left with the parents only if the husband is responsible for the dissolution of the marriage. Mr. P. P. Howell tells me that he is of the same opinion as Mr. Jackson.] If the wife dies after bearing a single living child the usual procedure is for the extra-family kinsmen to return their portions of the bridewealth and for the family of the wife to retain their portions, the child remaining with his father. If the wife leaves her husband after the birth of their first-born his kin may decide to claim the return of their bridewealth except for six head of cattle, which the husband leaves with his wife's people to retain his rights in the child (ruok). These six beasts, including the two of 'the hairs and the skirts', are kept by the family of the wife. The extra-family kinsmen lose their portions of the bridewealth. The wife by this procedure is divorced and can remarry. On the other hand, they may leave all their cattle with the wife's family and kin and maintain thereby their rights in any children she may 'bear in the bush', that is, by lovers. She is then not divorced, but is only separated, from her husband, and she cannot remarry.

I was told that if a wife dies after having borne two children no cattle are returned, it being held that 'cattle which have children on their backs cannot be returned'. Nuer said that should a wife leave her husband after having borne two children the cattle would remain with her kinsmen and any children she might bear by other men would be claimed by her husband's people. She is still married to him though she lives as concubine to another man. They said that the husband's people would generally be content with this arrangement but, whether content or not, it would be useless for them to ask for return of their cattle and the progeny of these cattle. The wife's people would say to them: 'You have your children. You keep them and we will keep the cattle. Let your wife bear you children in the bush.'

The rules stated above are principles which are flexibly applied according to the circumstances. In cases of divorce much depends on the personal relations between the husband's people and the wife's people. If they are bad and his wife has left him at their instigation, the husband may claim back everything to which he has a right: cattle, sheep, goats, spears, tobacco, millet, and ornaments, including his wife's bead-decorated skirt. But they are good and she has left her husband against her parents' wishes, he will not ask for the return of the smaller gifts and the puoth manthude, the little gifts with which he honoured his mother-in- law; and if she dies childless he may also leave some of the cattle to which he has a right with her parents in the hope that they will later give him her sister in her place, or just from sympathy. If he leaves any of the cattle, preference will be given to the portions of the spirits and the ghosts.

Another contingency which is taken into consideration is whether the wife is being sent away by her husband for barrenness or bad habits, which is rare, or whether she is leaving him without his consent and, in this case, whether she has adequate grounds for refusing to live with him, such as neglect or cruelty. Whatever the circumstances are, the husband has a right either to his cattle or to the children his wife may bear to other men, but it sometimes happens that whereas he wants his cattle back to marry again, since he cannot have a home without a wife, the wife's people tell him that he is responsible for the separation and must be satisfied with the children. They would not refuse him his children. If they tell him this -- and they would not do so unless she had already borne him a child and had lived in his home -- he has to accept their decision. There are no courts he can appeal to and his:, kinsmen would be unwilling to support him in resort to force. There is nothing he can do. If his wife has gone back to her parents and they do not want to return his cattle they tell him to come and fetch her. But if she is miserable with him she will only run away again, and this time to some distant part of the country. If he complains to her parents they say that it is no affair of theirs. Let him go and get his wife. In the end he will give her up and claim any children she may bear to lovers. There is always a chance that she will come back to him when he takes charge of her sons. I have never known a case in which a wife's parents have refused to return her husband's cattle after they have married her to another man, and when I asked what would happen were they to try to do so, I was: told that the husband's kin would undoubtedly use violence to get back their cattle and, in addition, curse the wife so that either she would become barren or her children die. On the other hand, it sometimes happens that the wife's people promise to return the cattle as soon as they are able to do so but fail to return them all, through procrastination on one pretext or another or procrastination, for they may hide some of their cows in the herds of kinsmen in distant districts. If the husband and his wife's father are members of the same local community, difficulties of this kind are not likely to arise and, if they do, they can be settled by discussion and compromise. If the two men belong to different sections of the same tribe, and even more if they belong to different tribes, the dispute, as is the case in all issues of indemnity, is not so easily settled.

We may now consider in the light of these facts to what extent bridewealth may be said to stabilize marriage. Most broken marriages occur during or shortly after the nuptial ceremonies. One cannot properly speak of divorce at this stage because in Nuer eyes marriage is incomplete till a child has been born. That until the birth of a child the wife is considered to belong to her own kin and not to her husband's kin is shown not only in her continuing to live with her parents but in other ways, most noticeably by the fact that the husband is held responsible for her death should she die in her first childbirth. He then has to pay compensatioin for homicide (thung yika). During this period, when the union is looked upon as still only partly formed, the family and kinsmen of the wife do not, if they are wise, disperse the cattle. At this stage, therefore, there is no great difficulty about returning the cattle, which are, indeed, kept ready at hand to be returned should the need arise. Also, it must be remembered that the husband is unlikely to have paid all the bridewealth before a child is born.

I cannot give figures, but on the basis of my observations and of my discussions with Nuer on the subject I would say that when marriage has been brought about through the normal negotiations, payments, and ceremonies, divorce after the wife has brought her first child to her husband's home and has lived with him for a year or two is very unusual. Should it take place the wife's family, who alone can bring much pressure to bear on her, do not, with regard to the reduced payments of bridewealth of the present day, stand to lose much, for they will retain six head of cattle. It is the extra-family kinsmen, who have less influence over the wife, who lose all their cattle.

I have never known, or heard of, a case of divorce, or even of separation, after the birth of a second child. My own observations are very limited, but they are supported by the opinion of Nuer that when man and wife have lived together for several years and have children the wife is most unlikely to leave her husband's home while he is alive. Were she to do so the cattle would not, in any case, as I have explained, be returned. After the birth of his second child a husband ceases to keep track of the progeny of his cattle. It should be noted that it may happen today that all the cattle in the kraal of the wife's father die of rinderpest shortly after the consummation of the marriage. As we have earlier noted, it is then not incumbent on the husband to replace them, or on his father-in-law to return others in their stead if the wife dies or leaves her husband. The wife's people need only return beasts in the place of those which have died after they have transferred them to third parties or which they have butchered. The father-in-law could not in these circumstances break off the marriage and marry his daughter to another man, for the cattle, though dead, are still >on the wife's back=. When I asked what would happen were he to try to do so, I was told that the husband's kin would claim back their cattle and if necessary use force to obtain them. Should a wife leave her husband in these circumstances the problem of bridewealth would probably be solved by the common Nuer expedient of letting her live as a concubine.

I think it is evident, in view of the facts stated above, that the fear of having to repay bridewealth cannot be said to be a very powerful sanction of the marriage union. Nor is there any evidence of which I am aware that would suggest that the greater the number of cattle handed over the more stable the marriage is likely to prove. Indeed, I am prepared to say definitely that the stability of Nuer marriage rests on quite other foundations than payments of bridewealth: affection between the spouses, the good reputation of the husband, mutual goodwill between the families of husband and wife, especially personal friendship between the fathers or between the husband and his wife's brother, and moral and legal norms.

It is generally safe to assume that when a woman lives with her husband it is because she chooses to do so and is happy in her marriage. By the time a girl is fully married to a man she knows him well. Usually he has courted her before asking for her hand, and she must give her consent before his request is granted. She has plenty of time between the betrothal ceremony and the ceremony of consummation in which to withdraw from the marriage should she be reluctant to complete it, and yet more time between the consummation and the birth of a child. I do not say that pressure may not be put on her by her family to accept her husband, but Nuer girls are not easily coerced. Nuer have good grounds for their assumption that a newly-wed who has borne her husband a child and brought it to his hearth is satisfied with her mate. By the time a second child is born experience has shown that the pair are agreeable to one another also as domestic partners. As Nuer observe a weaning taboo, this means at least three years after the birth of the first child.

Mutual goodwill between the families is also a necessary condition of a successful marriage. Marriage is not only a conjugal relationship but also a set of affinal relations, and it can be stable only if the kin on both sides behave towards the other side in the manner expected of them. This they endeavour to do. A man tries not only to live up to the pattern of what Nuer regard as a good husband but also to be a polite and helpful son-in-law and his wife's family try to act correctly towards him. The relatives on both sides also try to behave towards those on the other side as persons standing in these relationships should do. It is the evocative and inhibitory action of these moral values, sanctioned by approbation and censure, which give stability to marriage and security to the family that derives from it. Divorce is due to failure of one or other of the parties to live up to the code of conduct expected of him or her, and Nuer regard it as a misfortune in which there is also an element of the shameful.

Conjugal and affinal relations are personal relationships which require adult adjustment that is not easy. A Nuer regulates his behaviour to the persons around him through kinship values of one kind or another. Owing to the extensive area of kinship covered by Nuer marriage prohibitions, a man cannot marry into a family or lineage with whom he has already close kinship ties. He must therefore marry the daughter of people who are under no obligation to provide him with a wife or, indeed, to assist him in any way. This means forging new social links which by their nature cannot at their inception be of a kinship order. Nuer bridewealth payments are thus complementary to their marriage prohibitions.

Eventually affinal ties are, by slow degrees, transformed, as Nuer themselves say, into kinship ties. The birth of a child gives the wife kinship with her husband's people and the husband kinship with his wife's people. They say that ruagh, in-law relationship, becomes mar, kinship. Bridewealth payments may therefore be viewed as a technique for creating new social relations between persons between whom there are no well-defined patterns of behaviour and for maintaining them. They are one of the many ways in which gifts and payments are used for this purpose, and