Holy Weddings, Unholy Marriages: Christian Spouses and Domestic Discords in Early Colonial Lesotho, 1870–1900

Abstract

In the Lesotho Archives in the capital Maseru, lies unreferenced, scattered files containing testimonies of Christianised BaSotho couples embroiled in marital litigations in the last third of the nineteenth century. Reading these testimonies in relation to one another, and engaging in an in‐depth qualitative examinations of the narratives embedded in the texts offers a rare opportunity to explore the texture of conjugal relationships among Christianised spouses in this period. The compelling picture that emerges is one of extreme instability of Christian marriages. We behold here conjugal lives teeming with conflicts and intrigue. Adultery accusations and spousal violence punctuated the conjugal lives of these spouses in unexpected intensity. This study concludes that after over half a century of missionising the BaSotho, evangelical missionaries seemingly had had little impact on the texture of BaSotho conjugal relations. The rampant “adultery” and spousal abuse that seemingly plagued these Christian spouses were expressions of pre‐Christian patterns that were manifestations of gendered conflicts.