Jolene on Pastor Walter's Traditional Marriage Ceremony

(photos to come)

Working with a program where we're telling students not to have sex until they are "married" and having to think a lot about what being "married" actually means, it was quite interesting to attend a traditional Ugandan marriage. Churches here teach that the traditional marriage is not enough and that a church wedding must also take place. The reason for this is a man can take more than 1 wife the traditional way, but can only wed 1 woman in the church. People here will get married in the traditional way, which includes the start of the man paying the agreed upon bride-gift and moving in together, but the church wedding itself normally happens much, much later after the bride-gift has been paid in full and the couple has had enough time to save and collect money for an expensive ceremony in the church.

Walter as a pastor has been trying to do his marriage to Juliet in the most church-accepted way. We had the privilege of attending his traditional marriage ceremony last Saturday and are looking forward to the church wedding that will take place on 20 September. He refuses to take his maybe-almost-wife to stay with him until after the wedding even though her family seemed to expect him to.

At the traditional marriage ceremony, Walter's family and friends (including us) arrived at Juliet's family's home dressed in our best. They made us wait outside the "gate" of the homestead while they discussed something with Walter through delegates. It sounded like they were negotiating the bride-gift, but since that was also done later, I'm no longer sure what had to be agreed before we could pass.

Once that agreement was made, we were ushered in to seats under a tent for the ceremony. The first significant item on the agenda was for Walter to send delegates with the bride-gifts he'd brought in to Juliet's family. It took a significant amount of time for her family to receive the gifts and there were continually messages coming back to Walter as if in further negotiations about what additional gifts he would be bringing compared to what he'd already brought. Finally everything was in order and Juliet's family accepted the gifts and promises of future gifts.

Shortly thereafter, Juliet's family started to bring out girls dressed in their finest for Walter to "choose" from. They made up this cute story about how they were flying the girls in from an island and they could only bring a certain number at a time. The first batch consisted of 3 young girls and somehow a young boy. Walter and his men got up from their chairs and studied them all looking very very serious. After some time of studying, he informed the family that none were acceptable. In line with the story, he had to agree to pay enough money to cover transport costs to fly these girls back and collect more from the island. The next batch consisted of women of the right age, but none of them were Juliet. The process was repeated. The 3rd batch included Juliet with all the other girls from before. She's beautiful and couldn't stop smiling even though she was trying really hard to be serious.

After inspecting the 3rd batch for some time, Walter finally chose Juliet out of all of the women and announced that she was the one that he would marry. There was some talking but none was really translated to us, so the best I could get out of it was that she was asked if she was willing to marry him and she agreed. They exchanged rings, there was some more talking, and all the girls were guided back out.

Not long after this, Juliet came back out (in a different dress) for the cake cutting. She and her mother stood up together to cut the cake and serve it, first to Juliet's side and then to Walter's. It was supposed to symbolize the last time Juliet would serve a meal to her family and the first time she would to Walter's. By this time, Walter and his best man had been seated in seats of honor with 2 chairs remaining for Juliet and her maid of honor.

They sat with the best man between them as representatives from both families got up to introduce their family and guests and say some words to the couple. There was much preaching and praying done, but again, not much was translated for us, so we only picked up on a few things like homosexual, alcohol, and divorce (I have no idea!!!!). A pastor also spoke and there were a couple of prayers for the couple.

Juliet and Walter were both asked some questions during all of this speaking. Juliet said that she would go, so I take that to mean that she agreed to go as Walter's wife. Walter agreed to wed her and take care of her.

After all of the speeches were complete, Walter and Juliet lead the guests up to the food table for everyone to get a plate of food. Music was playing as if people might dance as we ate our food, but it was already after dark and we had a 2 hour drive through villages to get back home so we didn't stay to find out.

We were informed that Walter's ceremony was atypical because it was much more religious than is normally the case. Also, traditionally, there is alcohol and more dancing afterwards. Either way, I don't understand how that isn't sufficient as a wedding. Vows are made. There are consequences if either side doesn't live up to those vows. If the worry is due to the freedom to take multiple wives, it seems like that could be added as a stipulation in the agreements. If the worry is due to the fact that the wedding cannot be official until the bride-gift is fully paid, isn't that a bit like long-term prostitution? All that to say, we try to adhere to church norms in PRICELESS which say that being married takes more than the traditional marriage ceremony, but after all this time, I'm still not sure I agree with that.