Aspects of the marriage Mempa

Between the Mempa the young people has sexual freedom prematrimonial, and de facto the children born out of the marriage are not discriminated. Also they have freedom to choose couple, for which then his parents will ask in marriage.

After the marriage was established between two young people, he was having a mud to choose the date of the wedding. Traditionally, during the wedding a moderate gifts exchange was taking place.

The fiancée was going out of his house with his dowry and his jewels. It goes out accompanied by a covey of relatives and friends to the house of the fiancé, who receives it with wine to half of way. Then the ride to his house, and it entertains it first with food of scarce quality. Then the uncle of the fiancée protests in his name. It is the sign so that the family of the fiancé extracts the best things that it had prepared for the banquet. The fiancés compete with the guests to drink the wine more quickly, since according to his traditions, which drinks more rapid from the husbands, will be the one that will have more power in the house.

They preserve still some features of the matriarchal society, like the preponderant role of the maternal uncle during the matrimonial ceremony, or like the custom that still exists, of that he is the husband the one that is going to live to house of the woman.

The families are monogamous, and equality exists enough between the sexes. Although, since it happens between other peoples of this region, there is times that the brothers or sisters, share a spouse.

This polyandry was happening not to divide the wealth of the family that they them had, taking then the brothers his lovers. Other times it was to pay less taxes or to be protected before the calamities on the part of the poor.

Poliginia was usually sisters who were sharing a husband, generally also it was happening to increase the number of progeny in a family. Or for unfertility of the first wife, or for the processes of widows' transference, which sometimes were doing that a widow and his daughter were sharing husband; or that the widow will marry the husband of his sister.

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