Battling Gender Based Murder/suicides - Commander Maphephu's suggestion

 About a year ago, and following yet another gruesome murder/sucide of an innocent victim by a jealous "boyfriend", it was reported that the policeman in charge of the area, one Michael Maphephu ( I can't remember his rank) had stated that people who are not married should not stay together. Unfortunately, the enormity of what Commander Maphephu was saying was lost to most people including, I dare say, the government itself. No debates followed; perhaps because the idea that "boyfriends" could be prevented from living with "girlfriends" is something that our rulers simply cannot envisage as an enforceable law. But that idea is not new. It is embedded in the psyche of Kalangas. Its enforcement is not coded into law, such that a couple who breaks it could be put on trial; no. Rather, breaking that norm is severely shunned upon by Kalanga society, to the point where those who do so are treated as social outcasts. Since the culture of the so-called "Batswana" is an integral part of the Kalanga culture, I expect the former to sincerely engage in serious conversations regarding the desirability and practicality of adopting the "no marriage, no co-habitaion" (NMNC) of Michael Maphephu.

Why do unmarried people co-habit? There are many reasons. In our country the main reason is that the co-habitants are too poor to afford the expenses that go with a marriage ceremony nowadays. And yet they want their children to be raised in a normal family setting from the word go; so they go ahead and co-habit. To remedy this malaise, the first task before us is to rescue marriage from the economic status display that it has become, to the family creator that it was in the past. Under Kalanga culture an adult pair of man and woman, who want to start a family, and convince society that they are capable of supporting a family, regardless of how poor they may actually be, are entitled to a legal marriage.

A marriage where no payment of dowry, no celebration of any kind takes place due to poverty of the contracting parties, is known as "marriage by way of nkumbo" (nkumbo). I must add here that the Banyayi, a Kalanga group descended from the ancient Egyptian field irrigators, severely shun nkumbo. But that is understandable, given that the reason Banyayi left Egypt was that they were so stinking rich as compared to the ordinary Egyptian that the gods introduced Islam to try and "level the property playing fiield".

Under nkumbo, the two lovers elope TO THE PROSPECTIVE GROOM'S HOME. The prospective grooms family then sends a messenger to the prospective bride's family, informing them of the whereabouts of their daughter and the conditions under which she arrived - i.e. to seek marriage. If the bride's family do not approve of their daughter marrying the supposed groom, then they immediately go and fetch their daughter back, otherwise they send their own messenger to the prospective groom's family bearing two messages. In most cases where the bride's family go fetch their daughter back, she again elopes back to her sweetheart. This elopement back and forth continues until her family gives in and sends a messenger with the requisite two messages. The first message is "let our two families be friends!". The second message is the malobolo charge, i.e. the monetary amount that the bride's family consider their daughter's hand in marriage to be worth.

Here now is the beauty of nkumbo: There is no timeline attached to how, or when the malobolo must be paid. In some cases the malobolo end up being paid by the couple's offspring after the couple's own demise, if the couple's property remained too little to pay malobolo during their lifetime. But the crux of nkumbo is that full recognition that the couple is officially married happens as soon as the bride's family send the two messages; one declaring "let our two families be friends" and the other stating the malobolo charge. 

Nkumbo therefore eliminates the necessity for an unmarried couple to live together. It is in this context that the practicality of Commander Maphephu's NMNC recommendation becomes self-evident. Poor, young people who are only starting to work, but genuinely love each other and want to spend the rest of their lives together as wife and husband, do not have to put off their marriage plans for lack of resources. They can immediately get married with the blessing of their families; and start raising  a family while gradually accumulating resources to ultimately pay their malobolo without undue financial distress. This makes nkumbo a solid family foundation, which results in well balanced, well administered family units. Of course nkumbo does not engender a family unit that is impenetrable to social subversion, such as by political interests. However, it renders such subversion always detectable and correctable by concerned extended families, as it is ni the interests of such extended families that their childres' families enjoy stability.

And so I sincerely hope that Madame Unity Dow treats my two pennies' worth as a worthwhile contribution to the dialogue that she has invited our people to engage in.

 Of recent, there has been an interesting development in Ga-Ngwaketse. It is reported that a very well off pastor has recently requested that he marry a second wife. The Ga-Ngwaketse authorities declined to solemnise duch a marriage as in their culture a man can only marry one woman. The Bahurutshe boo Manyana on the other hand were only too eager to solemnise the marriage as it is part of "Tswana" custom to marry more than one wife. I appreciate that both the Bangwaketse and the Bahurutshe are practicing valid, tribally-specific Kalanga customs. However, there are two practices that differentiate this "Tswana" marriage from the Kalanga marriage as I know it. The first is the involvement of the Chief in solemnising a marriage. The second is the almost casual "consultation" of the first wife by the husband wishing to take a second wife. These are typical Tswana practices which though understandable, should never have been imposed upon the rest of the tribes of the Kalanga nation. The practices are understandable in that the "Batswana" are a highly segmented group of tribes. Therefore marriages traditionally occur between members of the same tribe, under the same Chief. Kalangas in contrast are not tribally segmented. They are many tribes living together and therefore a Chief of the bride is rarely a Chief of the groom too. A Kalanga marriage marriage is traditionally solemnised by the extended families of the marrying couple. No Chief, District Commisssioner or any other government representative plays any part in solemnising a marriage. The role of the government representatives, including the Chief is solely to REGISTER what the two extended families' representatives swear to have been solemnised by the two extended failies. That is how a traditional Kalanga marriage, stripped of "Tswana" corruption should be conducted. If government representatives, such as the Chief, would have any reason to doubt the authenticity of the declaration that the couple is indeed married, all they would have to do is to put out an annoucement, as they currently do, that anybody objecting to such a marriage should lodge an objection with the authorities within a stipulated time frame. Similarly, no judge would play any role in a couple's divorce. When the scriptures say "what God has put together, let no man put asunder", by "God" they mean the extended families as representatives of society! If a couple has neither immediate nor extended family, something which although very rare cannot be ruled out, then by all means, let governmenr REGISTER their marriage on the strength of the couple's own declaration.

The second practice of the Bahurutshe "polygamist" marriage as reported, which differentiates it from the (Kalanga) version where I come from is that under the former, one can marry anybody as a second wife, provided one "consults" the first wife about one's intentions. Knowing what "consults" means, as in the case of the president of the republic "consulting" the leader of opposition (LOO) on the appointment of certain officers, I must point out that such marriage is completely at odds with the marriage custom where I come from, under which IT IS THE FIRST WIFE WHO NOT ONLY INITIATES THE IDEA OF THE HUSBAND MARRYING A SECOND WIFE, BUT ALSO GOES ON TO PROPOSE MARRIAGE TO THE SECOND WIFE, who is always her close relative - quite often her own sister! As a result there is no jealousy between  the wives, and the maternal uncles of the children from the first wife are also those of the children from the second wife. Furthermore, if the husband should in future want to divorce the first wife, she will take the second wife - her relative or sister, with her when she leaves. In contrast the "Tswana" version of the polygamist marriage is so riddled with jealousy that it derives its name from the affliction - "nyalo ya lefufa", meaning "jealousy-ridden marriage"! 

In conclusion, Commander Maphephu's "no marriage; no co-habitation" (NMNC) recommendation is highly desirable as a measure to fight the scourge of gender based murder/suicides. One method of achieving the objectives of the NMNC recommendation is to marry by way of nkumbo, as most of us non-Tswana Kalangas do.