Marriage Among the !Kung San People
Every culture in the world has its own views on marriage. Though one view may be similar to others in a lot of aspects, there are still striking differences from what another may view as a “normal” marriage ceremony and married way of life. The !Kung San people of the Dobe area in the Kalahari Dessert of South Africa are a dwindling group of people. They have arranged marriage, marriage-by-capture ceremonies, and plural marriage. Robert B. Lee’s book The Dobe !Kung explains that some of the traditions of the old San culture are different from other foraging cultures; issues arise concerning the eligibility of a man or woman for marriage, and who he or she is allowed to marry (Lee 75).
From birth, parents begin looking for a partner for their child. Though the !Kung San have plural marriages “all first marriages are arranged by the parents” (75). This arrangement is typically set by the mothers of the children in question. The children really won’t have any say partly because they are far too young to decide such things themselves, as some are still in infancy at the time of the proposal, while others are near marrying age, and partly because the mothers are very picky about who their children should marry. When the parents of the bride are deciding who is fit to marry their daughter: “He should be a good hunter, he should not have a reputation as a fighter, and he should come from a congenial family” (76).
Once an arrangement is made, a form of reciprocity takes place, as the families exchange pre-marriage gifts with one another, known as kamasi. The prospective in-laws exchange these gifts to “reinforce their relationship” and decide whether the other is worthy allying with their family (76). To ensure that the boy is worthy of the daughter, “postmarital [sic] residence is uxorilocal” (76). In a matrilocal residence the couple is “located at or centered around the residence of the wife's family or people” (“matrilocal”). An uxorilocal residence is like matrilocal residence with bride service: “the groom comes to live with the bride’s family for a period of years and to hunt for them” (76). During this probation time, the family bonds with the husband and often “after 8 to 10 years of bride service, the couple elects to stay with the wife’s people” (76). This a trial marriage in which “a father or mother may take their daughter back if she is not treated adequately” (“Culture Out of Africa”).
The !Kung wedding ceremony is a lot different than many other cultures. It is a marriage-by-capture ceremony, but the bride is not really “kidnapped.” The capture part is a “forcible carrying of the girl from her parents’ hut” and is just a ritual, as the families have already arrange for the marriage, therefore it is a mock capture (77). Even though it is all arranged before-hand, the girl still fights when she is taken to her husband’s hut, in some cases she never learns to accept the husband she had no say in choosing to wed. In Richard B. Lee’s book, a firsthand account is used to illustrate this:
They told me this was the man they had given to me and that he wouldn’t hurt me
After that we just lived together all right. At first when we slept under the same blanket our bodies did not touch, but then after a while I slept at his front.
Other girls don’t like their husbands and keep struggling away until the husbands give up on them and their parents take them back. (78)
When the women have to struggle so much, to make their voices heard, it is no wonder that “ half of all first marriages fail” (79). The other half usually goes on to live a life of affection for one another, and hardly ever do these marriages end in divorce. As this relationship is something both sides have fought for, there is a stronger effort at making it work out. As the couple gets used to each other they “settle down for [a] stable long-term relationship” (79). This first marriage is done without the daughter getting any opinion on the matter, and sometimes “girls have been known to attempt suicide rather than let the marriage be consummated” (79). Some among the !Kung San practice plural marriage and after the first marriage “subsequent partnerships . . . can come at the initiative of either sex” (“Culture Out of Africa”). Woman have more of a say in this society than in many others, the struggles they have before a successful first marriage prove them as a strong partner.
Though plural marriage is socially acceptable in the culture, not very many men actually practice polygamy—having more than one spouse, only about 5 percent among the people were polygynous Richard B. Lee studied. He only accounted for one polyandrous union. Polyandry is “a marriage form in which one woman has two or more husbands at the same time” and polygyny is the exact opposite of that, in which one man has more than one wife (“polyandry”). The men that are polygynous are the most influential in the band; all were healers and most had a reputation of “being among the strongest and most effective healers of all !Kung men” (80). So, most men practice monogamy, “just one man and one woman at a time” (Ember 173), as those is the Western cultures are familiar with.
Many women simply will not stand for their husbands to take a second wife; they “threaten to leave [their husbands] is a second wife enters the union” (80). This could be a reason why most of the society does not practice plural marriage, as spouses come to have a deep affection for one another. Most stay together for “twenty or thirty years or more” and the only reason they end there is because of “the death of one or another spouse” (79). “Sexual jealousy appears to be strong among the !Kung”: this is why wives protest so loudly against their husbands, (81). Men tend to listen to their wives as “women are a force to be reckoned with” (81).
Almost every culture practices exogamy to different extents. Exogamy is simply marrying outside of a defined group: “It may mean marrying outside a particular group of kin or outside a particular village or group of villages” (Ember 171-72). The !Kung almost take exogamy to the extreme. Richard B. Lee explains this rather eloquently:
In addition to obvious incest taboos against marrying a father, brother, son, uncle or nephew, a girl may not marry a first or second cousin. Additionally, she may not marry a boy with her father’s name or her brother’s name. (75).
One can imagine how difficult restrictions like these can make finding a spouse that is suitable in all aspects. Perhaps this could be one reason why this culture is dwindling, but other sources, like the Earth Island Journal, think it is “by foreign invaders, miners and cattle-ranchers” (“Bushmen Fight to Avoid Extinction”). Preserving this culture is very important as it one of the oldest cultures in the world, if not the oldest. According to DNA “the San [are] the world's oldest surviving humans yet” (“Bushmen Fight to Avoid Extinction”). That is why it is crucial to understand the ceremonies of these people before they are assimilated into modern Western-style life.
Understanding the rituals of a culture is key to unlocking other important things about that culture. Though the San people perform weddings a lot less “traditionally” than most are used to, they still have lasting relationships and successful marriages. Through arranged marriage families come together as one. Marriage-by-capture ceremonies let the women prove their strength and also submit to their husbands to create a lifetime of deep affection. Plural marriages are rare, but still function in the society, giving the healers an influence over a greater amount of people through family ties. The Dobe !Kung by Richard B. Lee shows how marriage is a great part of the center of the San’s way of life.
Works cited
“Bushmen Fight to Avoid Extinction”. Earth Island Journal; Winter92/93, Vol. 8 Issue 1, p23.
Academic Search Premier. 15 Apr. 2010
“Culture Out of Africa”. n.p. n.d. www.dhushara.com. 15 Apr. 2010.
Ember, Carol R. and Melvin Ember. Cultural Anthropolgy. 12th ed. New Jersey: Pearson
Prentice Hall, 2007. Print.
Lee, Richard B. The Dobe !Kung. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1979. Print.
"matrilocal." Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster,
2002. 15 Apr. 2010.
"polyandry." Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster,
2002. 15 Apr. 2010.
