ABSTRACT
Marriage acts to both liberate and constrain husband and wife. It frees them to start their own family, yet burdens them with new responsibilities. It offers opportunities for limitless sex at the same time sex must be reproductive. Marriage arrangements differed even for members within the same immediate family. Also, individual circumstances could change through time. The first ceremony was usually a small affair at which it was compulsory for the husband to pay meher, the money that would belong to his wife if they divorced. In the pastoral economy this meher often consisted of a small number of small stock so that the divorcee would always have some means of support. In pastoral society dibad, on the other hand, was clearly the responsibility of the bride's family. Lewis describes this as dowry and writes that among northern Somalis dibad was proportionate to the value of the yarad, but rarely exceeded two-thirds of it.
