Customary marriage

LIFESTYLE

By THOMAS HUKAHU
IN my last article on marriage, I tried to define what a “true” or “proper marriage” is.
In this article, I will run through how the basic customary marriage is arranged. That is, how it is done according to our traditional ways.
It is true that if you look around you today, many marriages or relationships are copying foreign ways and others combine both traditional and modern ways of conducting a proper marriage.
Sadly, there are many other cases that fall under no body of rules or principles, like the de facto relationships where a man lives with a woman without a proper marriage, or future plan of doing so.

Marriage should operate under a body of rules
I am using the phrase “operate under a body of rules” because a husband and his wife will have disagreements along the way. No marriage is perfect.
Whether they formalised everything under the umbrella of Christian principles, a customary arrangement, privately with the signing of official documents, or a mixture of each of those, is for them to decide.
Operating under a body of rules is vital as when there is a disagreement and the two cannot see a way out of an issue. What do they do then?
Are they going to continue arguing day and night about the same thing?
Will one of them dump the other and go live with relatives?
Will that disagreement continue to cause other issues in their lives, where they cease to enjoy the love they had when they first met?
The disagreement can be sorted if they know which rules they follow, the Christian, the customary or both.
A marriage is a contract, a deal between two partners and there are rules to follow to mitigate problems. The body of rules that they follow will tell them whether they should talk about the issue again together and come up with an agreement, or just follow the husband because he is the male, or go see an elder in the village or pastor to help them with their issue.
Not knowing which rules to follow can frustrate a married couple. They go from one argument to another, week after week and there is no light at the end of the tunnel for them because they do not know how to sort issues.
It is like MPs quarrelling in Parliament without following any procedure or set of rules. In Parliament too, they have a Speaker who acts like a moderator to control discussions. Who then is the moderator in a marriage if there are conflicts. Is it going to be their parents, their pastor or the police officer on duty when the conflict occurred?
The body of rules they operate under will give them some direction regarding situations like this. Therefore, this concept of operating under a body of rules is vital.
De facto relationships sadly do not follow any set of rules. They kind-of make up their own rules, and break them again whenever they feel like it.
And, sadly, there are more de facto relationships today than there are of couples who had their marriages conducted in the right or proper way.

What happens in a customary marriage?
This is basically what happens when a man and woman are going to have a customary marriage, being married in the traditional way in Papua New Guinea.
There may be differences in the details, but the general format would be as described here. The main parties in the marriage include the future bride, the future groom and their relatives.
If a man is interested in a woman, he will first talk to his uncle or an older relative, someone who the man is comfortable with.
The older relative will then speak to other elders and the parents of the man, and they will talk about the man’s plan.
They will discuss and evaluate if it will be a wise decision depending on their previous interactions with the woman’s tribe, or how past marriages with the woman’s tribe fared. Were past marriages between the two tribes good, or did they fall apart after a few years?
The relatives may also do their own research into the woman’s family as well as her upbringing and daily conduct to see if she is going to make a good wife for the man.
Then they meet with the man and talk with him regarding his desire to marry the woman.
If the man’s relatives all agree with a possible marriage, then they will arrange to meet with the woman’s folks in a simple and usually private meeting to talk about the possibility of the man marrying the woman.
I was told my late step-mother, who is a mixed Kerema-Motu woman, that the Motuan people have the kuku heni, which is similar to this step of the marriage process where the man’s relatives go to visit the woman’s folks to formalise an engagement period between the partners.
That process means the unmarried man and woman are engaged and can meet and talk in public, with the possibility of a marriage ensuing. Traditionally, the two are forbidden to meet in public before kuku heni.
In the traditional Motuan arrangement, the man’s relatives hand over gifts including tobacco to the woman’s parents, hence the name kuku heni (tobacco giving). The woman’s parents can also give gifts to the man’s people, apart from cooking a meal for all of them.
A bit later, which can be many months later, the man’s relatives can then approach the woman’s people and set a date and other details for a marriage, and that can take place a year or two after the engagement ceremony.
Remember that in the old days they need to make gardens to grow food that will be used in the formal marriage ceremony and raise pigs, catch fish, make artefacts or traditional money, or gathering other resources, and all these take time.
(In today’s world, money has to be saved over time to be used in the formal ceremony, to buy items to be used as well as the bride price payment.)
If you visit YouTube and type kuku heni, you can find a video that captured such a ceremony which took place at Tubusereia village, just outside Port Moresby, in 2018.
After the giving of the tobacco and other gifts by the man’s relatives to the woman’s folks, all the other relatives, close and distant, will know about the formal marriage ceremony. Even neighbouring tribes will know about this and may want to contribute in some way to the very important occasion.
When the important day arrives, the customary marriage is a public event. People from both sides will be there, as well as from friends from other tribes.
Speeches will be made, traditional ties strengthened, or new ones are forged because of the sealing of the relationship between the man and woman.
There will be food to eat, gifts to be exchanged as well as the giving of bride price by the man’s relatives to the woman’s folks.
The customary marriage is formal in that it is public and there are witnesses. (I remember the marriages of some of my relatives from both the north and south sides of our nation vividly because they were public events and I also was either a witness or had a part to play as in the arrangement of such an important ceremony.)
After this momentous event, the man and woman are pronounced husband and wife and the woman will go to live with the man and his relatives.
There is the understanding too that the woman’s relatives can visit their daughter if they wish too. The marriage is a tie between the two or more tribes, not just between the man and wife.
These days, some marriages are performed in the traditional way, but they also add some modern elements to this, as in the signing of an official marriage certificate to formalise the tie where it can be recognised in a court should anything bad happen in the future, as in someone disputing the marital status of the two partners.

Examples of marriages published
If you visit stories in this paper or in Weekender online, you will come across reports of people marrying according to the customary way.
One that is of interest is a marriage between two Japanese volunteers at Babaka village, in Central, in 2018.
That report was published on May 7, 2018.
The two expatriates, Satoshi Kusaka and Chie Kusaka, exchanged rings before Rev Anthony Mayhom
Satoshi said the ceremony was a memorable one for him and Chie.
He also thanked the Babaka village community and colleagues for helping with the organisation of the event.
Another interesting one is that of a young man from Eastern Highlands getting married after accomplishing a great deal despite setbacks in his life.
Jeremiah Konisimo told himself that he would only tie the knot after he attained a good education, built himself a house and had his own vegetable gardens.
Now, that is a typical Melanesian man and his view of marriage. Marriage comes after the basics are in place, a house and garden of vegetables.
That article was published on March 31, 2017.
On February 14, 2020, a marriage captured in a Weekender story. It was titled “A Simbu Marriage in capital”, where a young couple tied the knot in a spectacular ceremony, made more so by inserting the traditional attire and practice in a modern city setting.

Customary marriages are recognised by law
It should be noted that customary marriages are recognised by our laws.
Mek Hepela Kamongmenan, a lawyer, wrote a paper titled “Customary Marriage in Papua New Guinea”, which highlights how customary marriages are viewed by the laws of the nation.
In the paper, which can be accessed on Owlcation, an online site, Kamongmenan said: “Historically, customary marriage was not officially recognised in the Territory of Papua, as all persons were required to enter into statutory marriages. On the other hand, in New Guinea … the indigenous people were restricted only to customary marriages.
“However, these significant discrepancies were merged by the Marriage Act 1963. Under this new Marriage Law (that is still valid today), both the statutory and customary marriages are valid.”
To learn about the marriage act and other related legal matters, you can go to Pacific Islands Legal Information Institute’s website www.paclii.org and access copies of those laws.

Next item: A Biblical perspective on marriage