This post has taken about five
different directions since I started writing it. It was first about
awkwardness in church. Then it turned into awkwardness in church
weddings. Then it was going to be about polygamy. Then it was gonna
be ALL about South African President Jacob Zuma after he got married
to his fourth wife last month. Then it was going to be about cattle.
Then it came full circle back to awkwardness in church. This post is
all of those things. This is usually how my trains of thought end up.
A thought-train wreck. And not just any train wreck, but the kind of
train wreck that is reported with headlines like “74 souls lost as
train derails” with the caption below reading “Conductor: 'Yep,
I was pretty drunk.' ”
This post is all of those things
without being any of those things, o lets just start. About two
months ago there was a new girl that started coming to church. She is
a teacher at the elementary school here. After a couple of weeks she
got up to introduce herself formally to everyone and face the
notoriously awkward and dry humor of our lead elder, who's name is
Mostafa. Yes, you are allowed to think he has an awesome name.
When he rolled around to the question
of whether or not she was married and how many kids she has, the
response was almost as much as a ramble as one of my posts. She said
something along the lines of, “I'm married and... well...not
married married, you know, but I'm with somebody, going on about two
years now and, you know, I grew up in the church and I'm not a bad
person and have been wanting to go to church with him but he goes to
this catholic church on the other street corner and has never invited
me to come along even though I asks him all the time.” I think,
because near the end her answer got a little unintelligible as she
got emotional and started choking up.
You don't need to understand the
difference between marriage here and wherever you are to understand
this response. What you need to understand is the difference between
cohabitation here and there.
In America, while many people view
cohabitating as a stage before marriage, it might as well not be
there. Statistically the chance of you sticking it out without
getting divorced are the same or worse that if you hadn't cohabitated
to begin with, meaning there is no advantage or difference from your
“free trail” period. It isn't something that “leads to
marriage” since this marriage is just as likely fail. It's like
saying brushing your teeth before going on a date leads to marriage.
It helps on the date, sure, but 10 years from now there's probably
not a lot of difference for divorce rates of people that brush their
teeth with those that don't.
Marriage is kind of a tricky
institution to define around here, but it's easier to see it as an
evolution in cohabitating. That's not to say that it is seen as a
“next step” or “practice for marriage” or “tryouts”. It's
not even necessary for survival or anything. It's more of just the
only thing there is. Such a small portion of people ever get
officially married to one another.
But even the prevalence of traditional
cultural marriage is hard to define. In the most basic of cases, you
have your family sit down and present your potential spouse. They
learn about you, and you get to know where your mother-in-law lives,
and then maybe there's dinner to celebrate. More involved occasions
involve sitting both families down together to vet the other. However
if distance is a problem, that doesn't always happen.
Anyways, like in the case of our
teacher, they live together, have a kid together, share their life
as husband as wife. But on Sunday's they are at separate churches,
and who knows what other aspects of their lives are not integrated.
Many even neglect using the term husband or wife, introducing and
referring to their spouses as “Billy's father” or “Lucy's
mother” and not as their husband or wife. Who knows if this is the
way it's always been done because of a lack of a concrete definition
of marriage, or because Billy's dad has sowed crops in a couple
different fields if you know what I mean?
The reasons for people taking in with
somebody are many. Most of the time it's good old fashioned mutual
attraction. Meaning the baby they made together mutually attracts the
two parents into one life. (Remember that most recent stats show 50%
of girls under 18 are pregnant or already have a kid). Many people
get pregnant through their boyfriend and then decide it's time to
move in. That's great if you're moving in with somebody that has
their own house. Or a job. Or land. Many other times its just
continuing on with your parents and then having and raising the kids
there. Maybe someday they'll move in together if he gets work, or she
could take up with somebody else that has work.
At some point, probably once you have
another kid or two to cement the relationship, you refer to them as
your wife or your husband. There's no set in stone point, and using
church marriages as a reference can't be done because they are so few
and far between.
Another example is the a young man that
recently came back two our church. He used to be the leader of the
youth group, and then moves to a town about four aways away for a
job. He came back after two years, with a wife. A very young wife.
The first Sunday he was back in church, our hilarious, awkward elder
Mostafa asked him (in front of the whole congregation) if he was
married. After thinking for a minute, he said, “I'm not sure how to
respond to that question.” Ummmm.....
The next week, near the end of church
during announcements (which take longer the the rest of the service
combined) Mostafa asked again if he was married. He walked up to the
front of the church with his very young wife and said to everyone,
“This is my answer.” Mostafa then started referring to her as
Mrs. Answer. When Mostafa asked our old youth leader if she was his
wife he avoid the question one more time, answering, “She is the
person that helps me get my water.”
That's cultural euphemism for no, not
really, but we live together.
That's not to say that marriage is a
hollow institution here. I just want to say that many times the
purpose of marriage is different than what you may thing of a happy,
healthy marriage. (It's estimated that anywhere between one-in-eight
to one-in-five people are HIV+, which means at the very least that
conjugal bliss is not seen as part of the equation for marriage
requirements. And based on some estimates saying that as many as 75%
of adults have an STD in Nampula it's a fair guess to say that
fidelity is not a highly-valued component of marriage.)
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