The bride (2nd left) receives gifts from her husband-to-be’s sister
(right) at the traditional kwanjula ceremony. Photos by Dominic Bukenya
By Christine Katende
Back in the day, marriage was taken more seriously than today.
Parents groomed their children with a direct motive of getting married
at a certain age. This meant giving extra time to the children, most
especially girls, to be good wives and mothers.
However, today
people start dating or hook up while at school, night clubs or pubs, in
taxis or buses and probably move in without their parents’ knowledge.
Girls in Buganda were given extra preparation for marriage to avoid disappointments and breakups.
According to Charles Lwanga Busuulwa, a ceremonial
spokesperson, at the age of 15, girls were taken to the paternal
aunt’s (ssenga) homes for training.
“Away from the general conduct,
love and respect, there are certain rituals paternal aunts perform for
girls to become real women. While at the aunt’s place, a girl is taught
about the good and bad side of marriage, how to deal with marital issues
and then cautioned to be resilient in case of challenges,” he says.
“The kitchen and bedroom habits are vital aspects
during the ssenga’s training,” mentions Annet Nandujja, a commercial
ssenga and counsellor. After the training, the bride’s parents along
with the family elders would start looking for a man to marry their
girl. This is after they are well-informed about the behaviour and
background of a certain family that they wished to relate with.
The
search for a husband or wife was headed by elders from both the bride
and groom’s family but the proposal came from the man’s side. Apart from
the elders, the girl had no hand in the preparation or discussions
whatsoever, according to Busuulwa.
Meeting the in-laws
An introduction (kwanjula) would follow after elders from both sides reached a consensus about how much bride price to pay.
The
ceremony involved a few in-laws and relatives from the girl’s family
after which a letter of consent would be signed as evidence that the
girl had been married off with the entire bride price paid.
Nandujja
adds that in the morning of the wedding, the in-laws are expected to
bring what is called kasuze katya, entailing paraffin, a funnel, match
box and a lamp to the girl’s home. A girl can only leave her parent’s
house when that is settled.
“A pretend fight, which is increasingly
being left out of the process with the more modern families today, is
staged between the in-laws and the girl’s brothers and nephews,” she
reveals. Their aim, according to her, is to prevent the girl from
leaving the home while the in-laws insist on taking their bride.
And in most cases, in-laws pay money so as to be
allowed in case they lose the struggle. This money is paid to convince
them to let them get the paraffin into the house, without which they
cannot take the girl. “The other alternative is to come very early in
the morning as the brothers are asleep and hence avoid the fight,” she
notes.
Nandujja, however, says before even the in-laws come in, the
bride would have been bathed by her aunt (ssenga) or the grandmother and
as she moves out of the room; her mother ties a white cloth around her
waist, which is later unwrapped only by her husband in their marital
bedroom.
Thereafter, the bride bids her family farewell and leaves
with her new family members who take her to the salon where she is
prepared for church.
Role of the Ssenga
After the wedding, Busulwa says, originally, the
ssenga had to accompany the girl to her marital bedroom just to follow
up on whether the girl performs exactly as she was told. In case she
failed, the aunt would instead demonstrate as she watched her to avoid
family insults. The girls married when they were virgins and therefore
were expected to be ignorant about sex.
The ssenga had to take the
stained bed sheets to her sisters to prove that the girl was a virgin.
This was followed by the new in-law (son–in-law) presenting a goat that
was slaughtered, prepared and served in the banana plantation by the
bride’s paternal aunties.
The leftovers, if any, would also be buried in the
plantation. This is because it is a taboo for anyone else to taste it.
Busulwa, though, expresses pity saying many people have turned away from
the culture today and everybody acts how they please. “Marriage has
lost meaning. People do not marry for love but instead pleasure and
riches and that is the main reason many marriages collapse. People have
gone Western, shying away from what tradition says,” Busuulwa states
Bride leaving parents’ home
Leaving
the parents’ home was in the morning of the wedding day but before the
bride left, she had to go to the sitting room for the ‘last’ meeting
with her parents. There, she sat on her father’s, mother’s and
grandmother’s laps as each of them bid her farewell accompanied with
tips of wisdom on how to handle marriage. The act of sitting on the laps
was to emphasise that although she was getting married, she would still
be regarded as a child in her father’s house. After all that, her
grandmother would carry her on the back and take her out of the house
for about three times just to show her that even after she is married
off, she should always find time to visit her parents. They would,
however, never forget to remind her that she would be going for good.
Her bed would then be thrown out of her parents’
house, which literally meant that she had no resting space in there; her
husband’s home would be her new home. This was done to discourage a
girl from thinking about separation or divorce whenever she encountered
challenges in the marriage. Later, the bride would be requested to
carry firewood, a pot and a knife as she moved in and out of the house,
symbolising a reminder of her responsibilities as a woman in the home.
CREDIT: NMG
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