ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the peoples of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanganyika, who are classified by anthropologists, on the basis of language, as Bantu, Nilotic, and Nilo-Hamitic, and with the Nilotic Nuer of the southern Sudan. The instructions on marital relations, on processes of conception, and on the rearing of children, were amplified, or recapitulated, as part of the ceremonial of marriage. The importance attached to legitimate sons and the role of the cattle payment in securing them are illustrated by the marriage in which a woman gives the cattle and by ‘ghost marriage’. The characteristic reasons for seeking divorce are the same in this region as in other parts of Africa: excessive quarrelling, whatever the reason, the failure of either spouse to make the appropriate contribution to the family subsistence, the suspicion of witchcraft. In modern conditions the increased demands for marriage payments are becoming a deterrent to marriage in circumstances where there is no effective sanction on unlegalized cohabitation.
