As I have briefly mentioned in an earlier post, I have
married into a Xhosa family which practices cultural traditions and this has
thus put me in a position where I get to have a front row seat to what is a
Xhosa bride. In my family, the traditional rules for umakoti were never really
that strict as in some families; I remember my late uncle’s wife doing the
chores but it was never solely her responsibility, the family all worked
together, even my mom, her sisters and even my grandma at times. I never
recalled a period where my aunts just sat around doing absolutely nothing and
she did everything from morning to dawn.
Then when it came to big functions in the rural areas
(ezilalini), I recall a huge group of women who would pitch up wearing sheshwe
print dresses, aprons, towels and a doek on their heads. These women would be
in charge of all the cooking and whatever else that needed to be done for the
occasion, having help for young girls when it came to distributing food. Now
this was just the norm, the very older women, like in the league of my
grandmother or so would normally be sitting around in some room or hut, as they
had reached the Xhosa status I suppose where they had earned the right not to
do work as they were no longer young makotis. There is a specific hierarchy to
the whole matter I have come to find out, where the older wives have
superiority over the newly married wives, regardless of age.
