SHONA MARRIAGE CUSTOMS AND TRADITIONS

By Susan Taruvinga

In our Shona marriage culture, the family of the bride and groom play a big role throughout the process of the unification of the couple to be married. Although with many of our family members and children moving abroad to new countries and merging cultures through intermarriages many of the Shona customs of marriage have been somehow eroded or become mixed. Our children due to globalisation now travel to far off lands in search of better educational opportunities and job prospects also known as economic migration. As they live in foreign lands for many years or the better part of their formation years they are exposed to other cultures and with time when they want to get married or marry, they must reconstruct the traditional marriage ritual with that of the spouse from another culture to create a system that they are both comfortable with. This transnational shift in tradition and culture is what is now the new norm. In our language they say RORANAYI VEKUMATONGO meaning MARY FROM YOUR OWN CULTURE, this was coined to mean that once 2 people marry from among their own culture, there is less complications of belief system merging and confusion as to which cultural system of tradition would be followed in the new home of the newly married or newlyweds. To avoid culture clashes and eroding of both parties’ culture and traditions in a bid to assimilate or agree. With that said, still it remains upmost in our Shina culture and tradition, that most important aspect of the Shona marriage custom is the payment of roora to be respected by both brides family and grooms family regardless of intermarried or not. It is paid by the grooms family and it is also known as dowry. This payment is negotiated and paid to the women’s family to finalize the marriage in the form of cows which is the bride’s worth. Part of the negotiation of roora is called Kukumbira or asking for the woman’s hand in marriage from her family. This is a process and a system in itself; complex it seems but also beautiful culturally and traditionally. The system of kukumbira and paying roora to the bride’s family the couple will initiate the process after they have agreed between the two of them that they want to get married. The process happens through a mediator who is a go in between the two families until the parents have agreed and granted their permission to bless the union. The family of the groom will finalise the dowry or roora with the bride’s family first to gain the parental blessing and considered married and legal. In the Shona traditional culture this is the acceptable marriage union before the parents first then thereafter the wedding dates and commemorations can be done to toe the knot using the modern system either in church or at a court as decided by the couple and the families involved.

KUGARA NHAKA

Kugara nhaka, known in English as wife inheritance, is the practice where upon the death of a husband the widowed woman marries the younger brother of the deceased husband. This cultural system helps to ensure that the family lineage continues after the husband dies. The widowed wife of the deceased is made to choose a husband from among her late husband’s family of brothers. The different traditional and cultural system mentioned here have lost significance in some individual and some of the intermarried couples have changed to modern systems which has slowly eroded the Shona customs to be replaced with the new pop culture systems. Some of our children of the new age generation after being exposed to other cultures and traditions tend to think that the aspect of roora or dowry is to be bought or merchandised. Through all these debates and belief systems changing over time, still the traditional and cultural aspect of the Shona marriage system still withstands the test of time and is the most preferred as a symbol of our hunhu and respect to our parents and elders both the groom and the bride This is another common Shona culture among some couples who get married through kutizira or to elope. This happens when the woman gets pregnant to her fiancé before he is ready to pay roora or dowry. Traditionally in the Shona culture once a woman gets pregnant before she is married, she can no longer be allowed to live at her parents home. Due to the unplanned pregnancy the young woman is therefore forced to go to her father’s child in which case it is usually forced upon the young man or father to the pregnancy to take his responsibility and care for the woman and child pending paying roora. In this case it is now a case which comes with penalties to the groom when he eventually goes to marry the young woman who will now be his wife through kutizira

CHIMUTSA MAPFIHWA

Another related cultural process to kugara nhaka is also known as chimutsamapfihwa, in which a man whose wife has died marries the young sister of his late wife or a niece to his late wife. This system in the Shona culture is such that the young sister to the deceased wife or her niece will take over the responsibility of looking after the remaining children and the family for smooth continuity within the family structures. The young sister or niece of the deceased wife known as chimutsamapfihwa’s will in this case continue the duties and responsibilities of her sister as a wife and mother to the surviving widow and children. This system protected the children of the deceased as they carried on under blood maternal care and are less likely prone to abuse.

In as much as we hav different marriage customs and cultures worldwide, as Zimbabweans from our cultural background, we cannot overlook the important roles played by family in our traditional marriages. The payment of roora or dowry should be seen as a form or respect between families to get parental blessings.

When both traditional and modern cultures are used first roora then modern wedding, the process is complete, and all are happy, and the families unite and become one.