A Courtin' We Will Go...

How did you meet your husband?

It seemed like a simple question until I heard the sound of bees swarming in the room as the women spoke rapidly to each other in Sena. Their wide-eyed expressions and self-conscious grins clued me in that I was about to cross another cultural divide.

The prep question was part of the weekly Bible study on Rachel. The story of Jacob and Rachel's first meeting always seemed a bit peculiar: Jacob meets sweaty shepherd girl; waters her sheep; kisses her and then he cries. Okay, maybe the story is a bit more involved but what happened to the rule that men are supposed to play "hard to get" in order to be more attractive to women? Though Rachel's story is mind-boggling, I was about to hear personal narratives from these women that had a similar format:

"I was approached by the grandmother of a man," began one woman. "She asked me if I would marry her grandson. My parents insisted that she bring him to meet us. He came to my door, we set a date for one year later but I got pregnant, and then we started living together."

"I was 15," offered another woman. "A man that lived in Beira sent his sister to ask me if I would marry him. He gave a dowry to my parents. We married one year later."

"My mother couldn't afford to keep me," admitted another, "so she gave me away to an older man as his third wife."

The stories in the bairros this week continued with the same narration:

"I was 16," said Eva, "when I met an older woman. We became good friends. She asked me if I would marry her son. I married him one month later."

One man shared his story. "I had a first wife that I sent away because she could not give me children. I took on a second wife. We had six children but four of them died."

Lucia met her husband on the street when she was 14. He asked her to marry him one week later. They were married for 16 years until he left her for another woman. He died shortly thereafter.

Many of these women's stories ended with abuse, betrayal, abandonment and AIDS. They suffered like Leah as the "unloved wife." They were especially attentive as they heard the story of God's compassion towards Leah and His plan for her in the lineage of Jesus. My heart is that these women will experience God's unconditional love and see His eternal plan for their lives.

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Traditionally in Mozambique, it is not uncommon for a man to see a girl and decide he wants her for his wife though he has never talked to her; not unlike Jacob's experience. Once a man decides he wants a girl he will approach her either through a friend or directly. Then he meets the family of the girl who will decide if this is agreeable. After the girl has met her future husband's family, the girl's parents set a price for a dowry. Once the dowry is paid, the man can take the girl home with him as his wife. There usually is not any formal civil ceremony.

In all the stories I heard this week, not once did I hear women initiating this process. Many women who live in dire poverty don't have the confidence of an education to sustain them. They will readily agree to a marriage for future security. Even at that, the more educated younger generation is shifting away from this custom for promiscuous relationships without parental approval. This trend is compounding the AIDS epidemic.

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WHAT DOES A DOWRY LOOK LIKE? Out of curiosity I asked Manuel of the GD to elaborate on his dowry for his wife Ramizia. He paid 3500mt ($140), one suit and a pair of shoes for his father-in-law, a suit, purse and pair of shoes for his mother-in-law, clothes for Ramizia and a suitcase to put them in. Truly a remarkable dowry considering the average person here earns less than $2 a day. I asked my husband if he would have had to pay for me if I would still be on the auction block. He laughed and said he has been paying for me since we got married. :-)