ABSTRACT
This is the first of two chapters on marriage. Chapter 6 begins by situating marital links within the context of exogamic exchange between clans more generally. Its main emphasis is on process. It discusses at length how marriage has been typologized in the ethnography of the Moluccas, with reference to those folk categories used to compare across a range of ethnic groups. The differences between Nuaulu practices – categorized as elopement, marrying into the wife’s clan and marriages of ‘big words’ and ‘great value’ – are each described. The fluidity of these categories is stressed, each type developing into the next as circumstances permit or require. The material transactions accompanying marriage are discussed, as are the networks for procurement and distribution of exchanged goods and services. Finally, marriage is examined as a narrative event using various specific cases. The chapter concludes by re-capitulating the bundle of relations and exchanges connecting clans and sacred houses emanating from a particular marital event, characterized as ‘the marriage nexus’.
