ABSTRACT
The people recognize and practise several forms of mating relationship: church marriages, civil or state marriages, co-residential common-law unions, polygyny, extra-residential liaisons, transient affairs, and buyerprostitute connections. Statistically, their choices are as follows: (1) Of the total of 91 household heads 66 (73 per cent) are in a conjugal union. (2) Of those united by a conjugal bond, 97 per cent (64) are in a co-residential monogamous union. (3) Of those in a monogamous co-residential relationship 30 per cent (19) are united by a church marriage which includes a civil union, 5 per cent (3) are joined by civil marriage alone, and 66 per cent (42) are linked by common-law bonds. My purpose in this chapter is to explain these diverse connubial forms and to account for their different frequencies of selection. I shall show that the choice of conjugal form is influenced primarily by the definition of what a proper male and female is and by the manner in which these ideals are made manifest in the household.
