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Matrilineal Family Law and Custom in Malawi: a Comparison of Two Systems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Simon Roberts
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Extract

The Tonga are situated in the Nkata Bay area of the Northern Province while the Lomwe are grouped round Chiradzulu and Mlanje in the Southern Province. Both tribes have a matrilineal system of succession, but in many other respects their tribal laws and customs diverge. This discussion will be confined to family law and custom.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of African Law , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , Summer 1964 , pp. 77 - 90
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1964

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References

2 When a girl experiences her first menstrual period she will report the fact to older women in the village, and she will immediately receive instruction as to its nature and explanations of her approaching womanhood. The initiation among the Tonga is not a celebration or ceremony. When she tells the elders of her condition she will be confined for about a week and receive private instructions and advice from older women. After the girl's second menstrual period she will be given a shorter course of instruction, following which she will be regarded as ready for marriage.

3 According to strict Lomwe custom no one may marry until he has been initiated. Males can undergo initiation at any time between the ages of ten and twenty. Each year in the cold season an elderly male (namuku) takes a group of young men from each village into the bush for instruction. The initiation formerly took up to six months, but now is usually completed in a few weeks. The boys remain in the bush strictly separate from the rest of the community. The instruction is not only related to sexual matters and includes teaching on social behaviour in general. During the initiation the youths are encouraged to eat little food and to bathe in cold streams to toughen them.

The female initiation is carried out by elderly women in a similar manner. The young women remain away from the village for about a month, and are not permitted any social contact for a short period after they return to the village.

4 The exact status of the albino in the two tribes is an interesting question. They appear to be treated normally and live with the other members of the community. However, none of my informants could recall an instance of an albino marrying. At the same time, there does not appear to be any strict customary rule against this being permitted.

5 The mtenga is not chosen from any special group of people. He may be a friend of the man or a person chosen by the man's father.

6 Some time may elapse before the sending of the mtenga after cikole has been paid. This amounted to a year in the case of one of my informants.

7 After the marital rights and duties have been explained by the old women of the village, and before she grants him sexual intercourse, the wife demands a small sum of money from the husband. Five shillings is the usual amount. If the husband refuses to pay, it is regarded as a sign that he is impotent or that he does not love his wife. If, when the money has been paid and intercourse takes place, the husband penetrates the wife freely, and finds the hymen already broken, he will report the matter to the wife's old women. The five shillings is then returned and the woman scolded for having shamed her parents by having sexual intercourse with other men.

8 Because of the long period which elapses between the time when a woman is six months’ pregnant and the time when the child is weaned, the husband may go away to work in Rhodesia or South Africa in order to avoid his desire to have intercourse with her. On the other hand, some husbands marry second or even third wives in order to have constant opportunities for sexual relations.

9 Now the local court president: see Malawi Local Courts Ordinance, No. 8 of 196a.

10 Local Courts Ordinance, s. 15.

11 Lately regulated to £5. Previously it varied from £5 to £8 for a single act of adultery.