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Category:

Marriage

Topic:

Arranged marriage(1)

Consultant:

Mrs. Kaad

Children were often married at an early age. The family of a young boy who wished to have an alliance with a certain family or thought that a certain little girl would become the proper wife for their son, would go to the family of the young girl, perhaps only four or five years old, and presenting kava would ask for the child in marriage. Soon after, the marriage ceremony would be held for the two children and then they would be kept in their respective homes until they were old enough to live together.

Category:

Marriage

Topic:

Arranged marriage(2)

Consultant:

Jotama

It was the custom for an old man or an old woman to marry the small child of a chief. The old person in this way made a great show of his wealth and the people who would help him. The old man would hold the child in his arms when he married her, and live with her during the day but the nurse or grandmother would come every night and take the child home. There was no wealth or land inherited by this marriage. If the child wished to marry again when it became of age and the aged man was still alive there would have to be a feast given him and permission to marry the young suitable person. This was sort of a divorce by consent.

Category:

Marriage

Topic:

Arranged marriage(3)

Consultant:

Rosiama

Often parents would marry a very young boy or girl to some old woman or man. The ceremony was performed with all the feasting and mats. When it was over, all marriage bonds were at an end.

When a child became of age to be married, the old man or woman would probably be long dead. This ceremony was done to ensure the marrying child a marriage feast in life, in case it died before it grew to the proper age. First Charlie Jacobsen said it was to get claims on the land of the old person, but this was denied, and Rosiama said it was merely a matter of giving the child a marriage feast before it entered into the next world.

Category:

Marriage

Topic:

Arranged marriage(4)

Consultant:

Mrs. Kaad

Very often two families would arrange to have their children married, both being much under age, the boy six or seven but usually older, and the girl much younger. A regular marriage ceremony was gone through with the cutting of the heads, and bath, and exchange of mats. After the marriage the children were taken home again until the time they were of age to live together and take care of themselves. When this occurred there would be a big koua but no repetition of the marriage.

If a girl lost her virginity after she was married as a child, the boy's family would kill a member of her family and the marriage would be considered dissolved. The same was true if the boy made love and had sexual intercourse with any other girl.

When they came of age and the boy did not wish to live with the girl with whom his parents had married him, he would have his family approach the girl or go himself and say he loved another, and present a big koua and the girl could free him of his obligations.

Often young children were married to old members of the chiefly families. An old or middle aged man would pick a young girl of six or eight and be married to her with full ceremonies, after which the child would be taken home or at least left under the care of her nurse or mapiga.

This sort of marriage was done by the old man to "fapui the child" so that when she became of age to be married he would have already claimed her and have a young and beautiful girl for a wife. If he had waited, no young girl would marry him, because he was too old and ugly.

This does not seem to be a means of claiming land for the young girl, for in olden times, "if a young wife took the land of her husband, all her children would die later on. It would poison her family and she would be ashamed to accept it".

koua = earth oven and its contents

mapiga = classificatory grandparent

fapui = place a taboo on

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