As stated by Magubane in his book (Magubane, 2001) ,
the Xhosa nation may be identified as being a spiritual people, a quality
shared amongst many indigenous African cultures. Before the arrival of mission
workers the Xhosa people acknowledged and worship God, whom they had denoted to
as: “uDali, Mdali, uMenzi, uHlanga, iNkosi yezulu, Qamata, Thixo (Mtshiselwa,2011, p. 278). Xhosa beliefs blended into their everyday life, as they believe
that their ancestors played a part in their everyday life as who are believed
to be alive in the spirit world and could communicate and control what took
place in this present life (Hodgson, 1997) (Magubane, 1998).
 |
| Figure 14 |
This
belief system influences every stage of one’s life from conception until ones
death when they are believed to be joined to their ancestors. This would thus
influence marriage customs[1], as
a marriage in the Xhosa nation would not only signify the union of man and
woman, or man and women; but would, however, involve the women being introduced
and being received by the husbands’ ancestors. This, like most Xhosa
traditional customs, would involve a slaughter of animals as a gift to the
ancestors.
The sacrifices offered to ancestors make Xhosa
ceremonies to be more than just a custom, but a religious ceremony to be taken
seriously as the slaughter of animals to the ancestors is seen as a contract (Bredckamp, 1995) . Within the Xhosa culture there are many
possible acceptable roads one may travel in order to attain a wife, some of
which are the basis of discussion for this paper. Some of these practices are
listed below:
•
Arranged marriages
•
Customary marriages
•
Lobola
•
Polygamy
•
Ukuthwala
In many ways, these marriage customs are a form of
slavery or at least hold a close resemblance to slavery when placed under the
light. As defined by the Oxford Dictionary:
“a person who is owned by another person and
is forced to work for them, a person who cannot make their own decisions.” (Turnbull, 2010) .
Unfortunately this is a very accurate description
of many of these young girls and women, as they are unable to escape these
marriages nor are they allowed to have a say within their marriages, they are
simply forced to endure every form of abusive treatment and play the dutiful
wife.
Unlike traditional Xhosa marriages, marriage in
Christianity [2]does
not involve ancestors, but does however unify and consecrate two people before
God, through Jesus Christ. (Ephesians) This is of great significance especially
to Xhosa practicing Christians[3] as
it will affect their marriage ceremony and the way they enter a marriage
covenant.
This report will be discussing at the following Xhosa bridal marriage practices:
