Marriage across Africa

Abstract

Marriage has been a foundational but contested and fluid practice that demarcated biological and social reproduction in sub-Saharan African societies across time and space. Through marital and marriage-like arrangements, African societies have redrawn the distribution of economic resources and labor; gender roles and sexuality; rights to and of children; the contours of slavery and freedom; generational hierarchies; jurisprudence and the law; health and medicine; belief and religion; and politics and governance. Indeed, to talk about marriage is to lay at the heart of important social, cultural, political, and economic transformations in African history. Yet what is a “marriage?” At the most fundamental level, a marriage is a union between two people, forged through culturally and socially sanctioned ritual. But a marriage always involves many more people than the two who are married to one another, particularly in polygynous societies where men may marry multiple women, a few historical cases of polyandrous practices, and even in monogamous practices. Marriage sets up certain kinds of mutual expectations between many people grounded in rights and obligations, but these are almost always negotiated and often held in tension. Marriage consolidates resources, including labor and kin, and most societies invest considerable energy into gatekeeping and managing this resource consolidation through laws, regulations, and sociocultural mores. African peoples, in their relationships as husbands, wives, lovers, uncles, aunts, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, children, grandchildren, influencers, and political leaders, have debated this question in efforts to establish pathways to well-being and stability.