ABSTRACT
Chiga marriage follows a standard African pattern. It is polygynous, exogamous, and patrilocal, and based on cattle payments made to the bride's family. The form of a Chiga wedding symbolically represents the whole social structure of their marriage relations. First comes the bride-price payment, which is, of course, not a sale, but a contract between families. Its payment serves primarily to determine the status of children of the marriage; only if the bride-price has been paid can a father claim the children as his own descendants. After marriage, a woman becomes a participating member of her husband's household. Although her husband may be subordinate to his father or elder brother, from her point of view he is her lord and master. She owes him obedience and respect. Chiga marriage obviously dramatizes a girl's virgin reluctance to submit to a husband's embraces. The Chiga view of sex is rather a formal Latin one.
