ABSTRACT
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. Negotiations for the marriage are carried on between the families, not between the bride and groom, who have no say in the matter at all. The first stage in the wedding is a kind of ‘marriage by capture’, in which her brothers hand her over to her bridegroom. Although the formal marriage was the normal one, elopements did occur, and not infrequently. If they involved running away to a lover, some kind of love magic was usually blamed. After marriage, a woman becomes a participating member of her husband’s household.
