Engagement, bride-price and marriage rituals are elaborate and costly affairs nowadays in the Congo. This past Saturday 17 July, I was invited to attend an engagement event of a female relative at the Commune of Gombe. I was struck by the presence of a video and still-camera team, complete with lighting equipment, mobbing both families to document the proceedings.
At one point, Patrick, the suitor, entered the living-room without fanfare and was directed to one end of the room where he sat on a white-draped sofa, in front of a table covered with white linen and enlivened with red plastic roses, probably made in China as almost everything else these days in the Congo—from battery-powered fake storm lanterns, kids' toys, to pirated BlackBerry cellphones. (As I always pack for trips at the last moment, I did forget in D.C. the USB of my BlackBerry; and I still haven't found a replacement here, all the Chinese-pirated BlackBerry USBs in Kinshasa markets being unable to connect my phone to my laptop!)
On Patrick's left side, spread on a long sofa, his family members were already seated: his dad and his dad's brother, his older sister, and his mother; and, sitting on plastic chairs, were his mother's younger sister, his older brother, and his maternal uncle who would be the family's spokesman. The maternal uncle played such a prominent role as Patrick is from the matrilineal Bakongo ethnic group.
On Patrick's right side, we, relatives of the fiancée, sat on plastic chairs. The fiancée's mother and father sat in the front row beside the father's older brother who would also act as the family spokesman (on this side, it's obviously a patrilineal ethnic group). I sat in the second row, against the wall, next to a large table where there was food for the guests.
The fiancée's uncle started out by greeting the suitor and his relatives. (The language barrier—the fiancée's family being Swahili speakers and the suitor's side Lingala speakers—was resolved in favor of Lingala, spoken nowadays by all the Congolese.) He went on to tell the audience that the family had received the previous week a request for a meeting of both families. As these kinds of proceedings involve much acting and make-believe, he asked the guests to tell them what this meeting was all about—but this, only after the prayer by a pastor invited by the fiancée's family. To his credit, the pastor made his prayer short.
Patrick's uncle then stood up and made this unbelievable speech:
"We were one day walking past here when we suddenly noticed a beautiful mwasi [Lingala = woman]. We scrutinized her and we didn't see any visible sign telling us she belonged to someone or that someone had already laid claim on her. Emboldened, we decided to come here, to knock at the door, and to ask for the hand of the mwasi. At this stage, as we only came to ask for an invoice to pay for the mwasi, I take this opportunity to present to you the nine cases of beer required for opening up talks [he remitted an envelope containing an unspecified amount of dollars to the fiancée's uncle]. As we are your guests and we don't know anybody in the room, we would appreciate to be introduced to the mwasi's relatives in attendance. But I'll start by introducing our party."
(The part about "walking past" and "suddenly noticing" a "mwasi" is all BS. I'm told that Patrick and the fiancée have been dating for the past three years and that both the fiancée's parents know the man.)
The uncle then introduced the dozen or so relatives of Patrick, adding that theirs is a huge family and that they only chose to come in limited numbers on the occasion of this face-to-face encounter. The fiancée's uncle responded by limiting his introduction to the parents of the mwasi, to his wife and himself, assuring Patrick's uncle that they would get to know the other relatives in due course.
Satisfied, Patrick's uncle then resumed his spiel:
"But, as we all know, in these mwasi matters, one better be on the safe side. We want to make sure we are talking about the same mwasi we had noticed as we were taking a stroll in this neighborhood. We don't know whether you'd be replacing her with her sister or another relative. So, with all due respect, we now request to see the mwasi!"
Suddenly, one of the fiancée's aunts materialized from the adjoining room and told Patrick point-blank:
"Well, sir, that would require coughing up some dough. As you are well aware, travel is expensive these days. And to go get the mwasi from Kindu requires traveling by roads, railway and boat."
A guy sitting next to me yelled: "Are you kidding? Nowadays people travel by Hewa Bora!" (Hewa Bora Airways is a Congolese-owned airline.)
This observation emboldened the fiancée's aunt, who upped the ante:
"Well said! Forget about roadways, railways and boats. We're now talking air travel. I need to book a flight to go get the mwasi!"
Unbelievably, Patrick's uncle obliged. He fished out from the right inside pocket of his jacket a few dollar bills that the aunt turned down, claiming it wasn't enough for an airline ticket. He once again fished out more dollar bills, which were this time accepted as the fair exchange value for a ticket to the provinces. (Unfortunately, I couldn't see the exact amount of money the aunt got.)
The aunt withdrew to the fiancée's room where all of sudden ululations and chanting broke out. The lyrics of the chant in Swahili told the tale of desperation of Congolese women to find and secure husbands—though the present fiancée is a college graduate and a professional:
"You all claimed she wouldn't get married
Look who's getting married now"
Flanked by chanting female relatives, the tearful fiancée then appeared at the threshold of the living-room where she was stopped by her uncle. (This is the first time I've seen Bijou, the fiancée, since my return in Kinshasa. And I must confess she was dazzling: chubby as should be a beautiful Congolese woman, she'd strangely donned a sari like an Indian woman, with beads weaved in the tufts of her hair. I don't know how the hairdresser managed to achieve this feat: Bijou had a tuft into which were weaved jewels at whose tip dangled a pendant right in the middle of her eyebrows!)
The fiancée's uncle then called on the suitor to stand up and go to the threshold so as to face the fiancée and be properly identified by her. Patrick stood up and walked to the threshold.
"Is this the mwasi we are talking about?" the fiancée's uncle asked Patrick.
"Yes!" answered Patrick.
Then, turning to Bijou, her uncle asked: "Do you recognize this man as your suitor?"
Her eyes welling over, Bijou meekly uttered: "Yes!"
Bijou's uncle then said: "For this special occasion, I will allow the mwasi to sit by the suitor."
Patrick then walked his fiancée to the sofa where he was sitting and sat her to his right.
Patrick's uncle stood up again and formally presented Bijou's uncle with the letter requesting from the fiancée's family the "invoice" of the bride price. "We are introducing this request at this time," he said, "so that we'll have enough time to prepare ourselves for paying up the invoice of the bride price when the time comes."
Bijou's uncle then asked the fiancée's family representatives to clear the room and go outside in order to allow the "ba-bokilo" (Lingala = in-laws) to eat and drink.
We all went outside where we were also served food and drinks. I especially enjoyed the delicacies "mbindzo" (caterpillars) and "lituma" (pounded plantains) which I downed with two cold Lubumbashi-brewed Tembo beers.
***
In a country beset by economic woes, rampant unemployment, and where people eke out a miserable living on unsustainably meager salaries (for those who have jobs) and resourcefulness (known here as "Article 15"), these kinds of extravagant rituals seem to me like contraptions concocted by unhinged people to rob one another of paltry resources. In the case described above for instance, Bijou's family incurred extraordinary expenses to organize the meeting with the suitor's family. A source told me these expenses were in the order of $2,000 at the very least! The initial move on the chessboard of out-of-control potlatches… But I also know that Bijou's parents couldn't disburse that kind of money without the contribution from their vast network of relatives.
But, try as you may to discourage these expensive social games, the Congolese would stick to their cultural guns. One of my two daughters lives in Odessa (of all places) where she met and had been seeing a Kinois for the past two years. It now turns out that they want to get married. And the Kinois recently told my daughter's mother he's instructing his family in Kinshasa to come and see both parents (that is, me too) to formally file a request for a bride-price invoice or, as they call it here, a pro forma "facture" or simply as "liste" [list].
I thought people were kidding when they came to ask to write up a "liste" of items to put in the bride-price invoice! I first wondered how the suitor, whom I never met, would "pay" for my daughter as he happens to be in the Ukraine! "Through Western Union," I was slowly told as you would speak to a hearing-challenged person, "he sends the money to his family, then the family shows up here with the cash and the other items to be bought." A joker even asked me my shoe, shirt and pants sizes so that these data could be itemized in the invoice!
When I told them I wouldn't be making any list or write a goddamned "invoice," they shook their heads in amazement, bluntly told me I would never be an "American-American" no matter how hard I might pretend, and warned me they'd be writing the bill for me!
I had another worry: what if the marriage doesn't work and divorce ensues, would one be required to reimburse the husband? Another joker told me with a straight face: "No way! The guy would have already consumed the goods in the meantime!" I couldn't tell if by "goods" he meant "sex"…
I recently heard the tale of a couple of young professionals who came up with a novel idea to pay an outrageously huge bride-price invoice. The suitor, with a small family network, was underpaid and couldn't possibly afford the price set for "buying" his fiancée from her parents. Well, the mwasi, who works for an international NGO, drew money from her own savings and gave it to her lover to go pay her own parents!
I wondered aloud why a couple couldn't bypass the outrageous claims of the mwasi's parents and go directly to civil court to get married. "That would be taboo," a friend told me, "a slight that would bring upon the bride the ineffaceable stain of the parents. She wouldn't have any kids from that marriage!" It's with this kind of bamboozlement that some whacky cultures keep their victims netted.
It seems to be a season for engagements and settlements of bride-price invoices in my extended family in Kinshasa. A couple of weeks ago, a family member of mine who is a lawyer, was finally able to settle his accounts with the family of his fiancée, a physician. I got to see the crazy pro forma invoice issued about a year ago as a fatwa by the fiancée's family. This means that it took one year of savings by the young man plus the contribution of his family network to come up with the money to pay the bride-price invoice.
Here's the ridiculous "liste" of the bride's family:
"For the father:
1 six-button three-piece suit
2 shirts
2 undershirts
2 ties
1 pair of shoes + socks
1 wristwatch
1 six-battery boombox
1 demijohn of wine
1 big can of milk powder
5 kg of sugar
1 big Coleman storm lamp
5 goats
1 spade
$700 cash
For the mother:
1 six-yard "Superwax" cloth (for pagnes and blouse)
1 pair of shoes
1 headscarf
1 watch
1 set of jewels (earrings, chain, and bracelets)
1 blanket
1 sack of salt (20 kg)
1 sack of rice (50 kg)
25 liters of peanut oil
30 liters of palm oil
1 big cooking pot
1 goat"
I consider this list as emblematic of a cultural system gone awry. It now fills in the emptied vessels of past sound cultural features with today's garbage. And the more people tried to explain to me the necessity of these delirious bride-price invoices, the more I found these practices unjustifiable. In my view, these bride-price invoices are licit highway robberies.
(Photo : Alex Engwete)
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