Known for their dark, silk smooth skin, tall and strong frames, Luo women of old had an additional mark of beauty which was a gap between the teeth in the lower jaw, and not out of natural causes. This was the ultimate rite of passage for young girls who had now reached and surpassed puberty, and the evidence that that they had now crossed over into womanhood and so ready for marriage among other things. This gap was a literal plucking of the six lower teeth! Talk about pain and endurance, perhaps a foretaste of what adulthood would unveil but still with the assurance that you can endure it all and finally embrace the beauty of life.
It may be hard to tell whether young girls looked forward to this pain but, at the prime of their lives, they certainly would have looked forward to getting their own families. Perhaps getting attached to a strong, hardworking young man, coming from a respectable family, and one that the community acknowledged was an incentive; but also, most importantly one that the girl’s family approved of.
Today however, beauty has been redefined. With the multi-million-dollar beauty industry flooded with lightening, and whitening creams, perhaps as strong evidence that black may not just be beautiful, we are also left with a heightened rate of divorce. Well, not linking this to beauty or lack thereof, but only drawing an interesting parallel.
Luo women did get married and physical beauty was definitely part of the pack that young men, even then, looked out for. It was raw beauty. Needless to say, that as young women went to fetch water in the cool of day or at the crack of dawn, or better still, as they helped their mothers thresh their freshly harvested beans, unintentionally showcasing their beauty and homemaking skills, the young eligible bachelors were also out there. Seemingly going about their businesses, these young men had their ears and eyes open; they were keen to listen to what the elders had to say about the girl they were eyeing or had just spotted.
Life was also community based, so it was okay that an aunt or uncle could make a proposal and give the young ones a little push towards the desired direction. It could probably be called prying, or being intrusive in our world today, but the intentions then were pure. Family ties and continuity of their legacy and heirs to carry their names, was something of great importance to the elders. So, anything to get this done, was done.
So how exactly did young men and women end up as husbands and wives?
Dating and Courtship may be described as the period that a couple pursue getting to know each other, with the purpose of marriage. Traditionally, it was the period between betrothal and the actual celebration of marriage. Dating didn’t practically happen as you will realize in this piece.
According to the Luo culture, this portion was a silent pursuit of a girl by the man. Even if with the help of the seniors, the man would have identified the girl of his dreams and either kept it to himself or shared with allies who would eventually help him capture his bride. Yes! Capture the bride. Brides were literally captured into marriage and these foot soldiers were called Jo’meko.
Ideally, these were supposed to be young, strong men who also had the smarts to help their friends lure the identified girl, and not just for the sake of it, but for the purpose of getting the girl to his home to then become his wife. It was a real amen or fight that required strategy, strength and stamina. We shall get back to this, just hold the idea.
However, it is also possible that the girl knew that she is being eyed, in which case the capture would be a little less dramatic as typically this capture was a battle of sorts. Eligible brides would fight for their freedom as they didn’t see it coming. But when they were a willing party, the whole stint would be a lot less dusty or muddy affair depending on the season. The man, in a sense, had to fight for his place as a husband; to be accepted by both the one who had captured his heart, together with her family.
But in the instances that the bride was unaware, which was most of the time, this alliance was a key play in the act of a man gaining himself a bride. The best strategy in this case was that the man had to woe or win the hearts of those that could possibly stand in his way; like the brothers of the bride.
If he succeeded in wooing the family and proved himself worthy as a groom, they would then devise a plan for the capture, with the help of the bride and the groom’s family.
To get a wife, there were three main Acts in this play that could either give you victory or a try again later signal.
Girl is lured into a trap by the groom’s allies to bring her to the future husband’s Simba or home. If they were lucky that the unsuspecting bride falls into the trap one of two things could happen. One, the bride would automatically send out a cry for help and probably try to fight her way out of this home or from the grip of the supposed kidnappers. Her relatives at this point had every right to fight to rescue their own.
This in most cases was a failed mission on the part of the bride as the groom would have made prior arrangements to make sure that there was no escape for the bride. He only had the task of convincing the girl to stay, which happened once he showed up to comfort his hostage with the hope of changing her mind about him as well as her title on the very night from single to married. If she agreed to stay and not return home, she would be considered married even by her kinsmen.
Two, the bride could have also managed to fight her supposed assailants and somehow escaped from their grip. If this was the case, then this woman would be considered great indeed, a force to reckon with; albeit piquing the interest of many other suitors. As for those who lost her, the story is very different; this group ran the future risk of not gaining a wife even for themselves as they were deemed weak men.
The groom may have formed allies with the girl’s family to help transition her into a married woman. This would mostly be through the girl’s brothers and/ or aunties. These group of people would form a plan to lure the girl into the groom’s home in the name of accompanying her brother or auntie. The kidnap may have still been arranged even in this instance as the groom needed to prove himself worthy of the girl, he was eyeing.
There were also the go betweens better known as Jo’gam or Ja’gam in singular form. In most cases these would be members of either families who would do match making between two eligible young adults whom they deemed fit for each other. The role of the Ja’gam would be to set the stage for the bride especially, to be “Seen”, by the the eligible bachelor. These set ups were in form of a visit to a brother or an auntie, and vice versa in the case of a friend, to a brother who had perhaps shown interest. So with the brother’s approval this friend could come to visit, but the sole purpose being to let his sister be seen.
This transaction would be smooth not even the unsuspecting bride-to-be realizes she is the agenda of the visit; especially since at this point the eligible bachelor has already gained some points from the girl’s family.
After this smooth transaction was complete, the two would be conveniently given a chance to talk and agree or disagree depending on the pursued girl’s leaning. If there was a deal, the gentleman would either go back to plan the capture or continue with the chase until he got his desired bride. It was a clean and acceptable chase that when one day the girl did not come back home the family knew exactly in whose home she was.
This way of marriage didn’t exactly give room for a glamorous wedding as we all know it today. A Lot has changed, and the younger generation celebrate weddings a lot more differently than before. We delve into this in our article Luo Marriage Ceremonies Today.
Dowry
Now the deal is done, and the man has got himself a wife. The next agenda was paying the bride price. Nyombo. This was the point that every man showed off his capabilities in terms of wealth and giving the girl’s family an assurance that she was indeed in secure and stable hands. It was also the means by which the groom appreciated the girl’s family. Luos traditionally kept cattle in addition to being great fishermen, as one of their economic activities. In fact, a man with many daughters was to be envied since girls symbolized great wealth because of the cows parents would ideally be receiving as bride price. Dowry was therefore paid in form of Livestock. The bride price was not capped at any amount or number of cattle. It was what the groom deemed fit.
I recently listened to a grandmother married in the 1950s, on how her bride price was paid; she narrated it with such pride in her voice. Her eyes automatically lit up, as she explained how her husband made a great spectacle during her dowry payment ceremony those many years ago. The cows grouped in three sets of six and each set, accompanied by a few goats. The group of men accompanying the bride price, were all smartly dressed, never mind that in the fifties a man in a suit was one to be respected. So in this frenzy, the group of young men proudly entered their new in-laws home making quite a statement and signing off their intention with the herd of cattle they presneted to the bride’s Father.
The group that accompanies the groom for the bride price payment were and are still called Jo’nyombo. Accompanying these men was an elder, like the groom’s uncle or spokesperson who would do all the talking. This uncle would be one who was specially chosen because of his eloquence and ability to not only praise (Pwoyo) the groom but also to put the girl’s family at ease that their girl was in good hands.
The rule of the game was that the groom was not to be at the forefront, neither was he to speak. In fact, he really didn’t have to be there at all, though at a point he was expected to come and present himself to the girl’s family in a totally different occasion.
Jo’nyombo were then well received, and since it was not an abrupt visit the bride’s family would have also prepared a great feast for their guests. They were to properly feast, though not greedily or pretentiously.
Once a woman stepped out of her Father’s Home and into her home as a married woman, the expectation was that she has now become a member of another family. In this new family the in-laws embraced her as an addition and expansion of their own family.
By the words of an old granny that I got the privilege to listen to was that, patience, being intentional and remaining focused on building her own family got her to grow in love with her husband. And this was the script for most marriages then. It is being aware of the fact that these were two complete strangers becoming one after one incident of kidnapping. But patience and working towards loving and appreciating your newfound partner was the key. Exit was not an option. Divorce was almost unheard of.
The young brides were however to be careful of Jo’semo; spoilers in other words. The community had these kinds of people who for one reason or the other came to give negative or bad reports with the sole intention of inciting a young bride out of her new home. So, wisdom had to be applied in such instances, so that at all costs one kept their marriage.
Lest you assume that it was all rosy, we must add that there is nothing new under the sun, quoting the wisest man that ever lived, King Solomon. These marriages faced conflict, and the only word that echoed was applying wisdom, listening less to outsiders and talking to each other. When the conflict was bigger than the couple, the support of the elders especially the mother and father of the matrimonial home were the go-to people, to help quite the storm.
The process of getting oneself a bride was a wild hunt, in the literal sense of the word. But whenever there was victory, it did end up in marriages that lasted for decades. This does not mean that here was a special charm in the method that bound these couples together. Listening to someone from that generation, the underlying tune to all that she was saying as a factor in having a successful marriage, was commitment and determination. All this intentionality was geared towards raising a healthy and happy family while upholding the values that bound one family to another, thus building a formidable community.