Influencing
unwritten laws in Swaziland - I am somebody’s daughter
Marriage
Today we look at
how we can influence unwritten laws in Swaziland when it comes to marriage
under Swazi traditional practices. Under customary marriages, a woman is
expected to cry during her wedding, and as such, she is motivated to cry through
verbal attacks (insinuations or insults). Unfortunately, the insults are unregulated; anyone can
say anything. In short, it is part of our culture, so it can be argued
successfully that it is our culture to insult women when they are being married
and that it is our only way of doing things when we marry under custom.
Therefore, it would be difficult to tell people to discard it.
The reasons for
the prerequisites of crying when a woman is being married the traditional way
vary from area to area. Some argue that it needs to be known that you have
arrived in the homestead, and your announcement is through the shedding of tears
by screaming so that even the neighbours can hear that something is taking
place in this homestead and there is a new wife being tekaed. So, as a result,
you are insulted. Others allege that this is basically meant to break you down as
a woman to make sure that you don’t become assertive. Other commentators see
this as part of the proof that women are not treated on equal footing with men
and that this is part of the proof that the woman is supposed to suffer as on her
first day when being initiated, she is insulted and degraded verbally to show that
she is not equal to any of the family members she is marrying into.
However, there
are just unregulated insults that are hauled the woman. The insults and/or insinuations
will not be repeated here due to their degrading nature. Whilst it is our
cultural tradition to marry women through kuteka, we need to further investigate
how our parents were being insulted in trying to force them to cry when kuteka
was first introduced as a custom or else as a country, we risk being an archive of
backwardness or archives of barbaric behaviour. So, I think it is good to have our
own cultures as a people of Swaziland and as Africans, but also we need to try
and align our cultures with the new developments and that of the United
Nations.
Again one wonders why only women have to be
forced to cry when they are getting to marriage and forming a family. Surely,
this must be a joyous day for all involved. I begin to question if insulting women during kuteka is part of the culture or that in itself constitutes
an abuse of culture. Sadly, customary law in Swaziland is un-codified reliance
is placed on experiences of those who have passed through the custom. None of
the women said they enjoyed being insulted; they cited humiliation, degradation and
hatred for those who insulted them. So, there is a need to regulate the insults
and maybe review the need for crying during traditional weddings.
Culture preaches
that a wife holds an iron whilst it is hot, that marriage is the end of things
(Kukamkhatsali) all these things trains and prepares a woman to stomach
violation, to stomach abuse and live with it as if it is part and package of a
life of a woman. It does not have to be this way. Women need to be protected from
violations and abuse perpetrated by society, families and individuals.
Way forward
Culture is an
important heritage that distinguishes Swazis from other peoples; that is
dynamic and changes with time. Hence we should find ways and
means to influence the unwritten laws of the country to make them be at par with the supreme law of the land (Constitution) and international
customs as established by the UN and accepted by the nations of the world, including our country Swaziland. Traditional structures which are the custodian
of culture have to be assisted in monitoring which cultural practices render
the Swazi people’s customs in conflict with the Constitution and international
customary law so as to review and/or discard before we are viewed as an archive
of barbaric behaviours that demeans women on their wedding day.
Some suggestions
to resolve the issue of insulting women would include;
Ø Convincing
a woman why she should cry;
Ø Raising
awareness that insulting women is injustice, this is unnecessary
discrimination;
Ø Convincing
families that the young woman who has come to marry in this family could be
their daughter; even if she is not their daughter, she is somebody else’s
daughter, would they be happy if their daughter was treated in this fashion;
Ø Letting
older women who were treated harshly like that know that it wasn’t supposed to
be like that and that treating somebody else in that same manner doesn’t make
them feel better as they still carry those pains that they suffered when they
were being discriminated against;
Ø That
they can’t take the pain out on somebody else as that doesn’t reduce how they
felt the violation they suffered;
Ø That
furthering the insults create more bitterness with this new person (bride) who
could have become her friend or her favourite daughter in law; because she has
said so many things now against her (bride), she will stay with that resentment
for years.
We look forward to hearing from
you. You can leave us your comment below or on Twitter @SimaMavundla or email: simangelekb@yahoo.co.uk or acelushaba@yahoo.co.uk
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