Aboriginal Weddings
Marriage was a central feature of traditional Aboriginal societies. The need to maintain populations and thereby to ensure that there was always someone to attend sites and keep up traditions was matched by the desire to ensure that children were produced according to the right family groups and the correct affiliations.
Arranging Marriages One important way in which marriages were arranged was infant betrothal. Usually this was between a young girl and an older man. A man’s first marriage would not necessarily fall into this category: his first wife might well be an older widow. A girl could be betrothed either as a potential mother-in-law or as a wife. Indeed it was possible for a girl to be betrothed before she was born and to grow up knowing who her future husband was likely to be. 1) The couple should be eligible to marry according to local rules defining ‘ideal preferences and accepted authorities’. 2) Appropriate betrothal arrangements should have been made between the two kin groups concerned. An exchange of gifts ratifies the contract. 3) Actual marriage may be distinguished from the betrothal when the parties cohabit publicly and take on ‘marital responsibilities including sexual relations’. 4) The union is considered to be strengthened by the birth of the first child. There is the potential of marriage between certain categories of persons which is further refined by reference to actual kin, country, ritual and historical relations. Such a union is hedged in by certain taboos, including in-law avoidance. It is enmeshed in a complex web of kin obligations and responsibilities. It is underwritten by exchanges which both pre-and post-date any individual marriage. Violations or deviance from the marriage contract attract attention from different categories of person or persons. The Mother in law rule / the ban on speaking to one's mother in law: Aboriginal custom all over Australia bans a person from talking directly to their mother in law. This rule applies to both men and women talking to their mother in law. Perhaps this rule was developed to overcome such a common cause of friction in families, when a husband or wife has to endure many years of disagreement or argument from their mother in law! To allow this rule to work, communication took place via a third person. So, if you wanted your mother in law to do something for you, you might ask your spouse or another person: "Please ask your mother (so and so) to do (so and so) for me". When food was divided and shared around campfires, a mother in law had a small fire of her own separate to her son in law or daughter in law and their spouse. Her own daughter or son would chat and bring over some of the meat, or perhaps a grandchild would sit with her and act as messenger between herself and her daughter or son's partner. Information sourced from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/ |