Marriage In Tivland.

[File picture Luper and Busola]

Tiv marriage forms can be seen through four basic phases. The earliest was yamshe, marriage by exchange: a man who needed a wife located another man who had the same need. They then exchanged their sisters or daughters as wives. Next, there was the kwase-ngohol / tsuen / kôrun, marriage by capture. 

This was divided into two. There was, first, the forceful snatching of a wife from her husband that in Akiga’s words (1939: 38) was usually done by some “scoundrel[s]” who could fall on a travelling couple and take the wife and sometimes, even harass her husband. This form of marriage, by which the Tiv themselves lost many of their women during their migration, caused many “inter tar [that is inter-clan] wars” in Tivland (Makar 1994: 141, see also Akiga 1939: 137). 

It therefore became necessary to have the second form of this type of marriage. Akiga (1939: 141) has referred to this form as the “honorable marriage by capture: the Iye.” Wegh (1998: 55) correctly describes it, though inexhaustibly, thus:Iye began with a young man accompanied by his friends going into another country [district] to find a wife. The target in this case was no longer married women, but the unmarried girls. 

There the young men stayed with a man whose mother was from their own country [district]. They then sent out friends, or relatives, as gobetweens, who scouted for girls of marriageable ages, and selected one for the young man. Once the young man had received all necessary information, he made the initial contact with the girl. [Now he visited the girl’s house,] then the wooing of the girl began.

 This could go on for months. Ierve (s.d.: 25) too has added to our insight of Iye by noting that usually the young men that formed this group and went to another district were, often, each looking for a wife. They also always went with dances. The girls who came to watch the performances often indicated their interest in some of the young men by choosing to dance with them. Ierve goes on to note that if an Iye outing was successful, sometimes one man came back with many wives. But most of the times, the girls did not elope with their fiancés immediately. Whenever they finally eloped, however, the father or brother of the girl was usually compensated later with a girl. Thus, the iye marriage type was eventually like the yamshe exchange marriage.

The third phase and form of Tiv marriage was what Rupert East (in Akiga 1939: 159) said the Tiv used to call kwase u sha uikya, marriage by purchase. Akiga (1939: 159) explained this further: a woman was “bought as a slave and then married. Women of this kind were mostly purchased from the Utyusha, from the Dam, and from more distant clans.” Finally, the Tiv married by kwase-kemen, that is, marriage by bride price. This came about in 1927 when the colonial administration abolished all other forms of marriage and insisted that marriage should strictly be by the payment of bride price.

 Thus, a man, on choosing a girl, would demonstrate his marital intentions to her and her people by taking gifts to them and providing other needful services to them as well. This went on till the girl’s family, satisfied with the suitor’s cumulative goodwill, asked him to come and pay the bride price. Today, this form of marriage has developed into quite a number of processes unnecessary of enumeration here. Whatever the processes in any district, the marriage contract is based on bride price. It needs to be added that in many cases, especially now, the suitor often elopes with his fiancée. The bride price and other things are usually done afterwards.