Marriage by Elopement

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Periodical article

Title:	Marriage by Elopement
Author:	Keller, Bonnie B.
Year:	1979
Periodical:	African Social Research
Issue:	27
Period:	June
Pages:	565-585
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Zambia
Subjects:	elopement women family Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Women's Issues
Abstract:	Many domestic unions in southern Zambia are currently established through elopement, whereby a couple set up housekeeping without prior negotiations between the two families concerned and without the knowledge or consent of the woman's parents. Although the local court treats elopement as customarily illegal, it is socially condoned and widely practised. The main conclusions reached are that the parents and/or guardians of marriageable women are the ones who profit, financially, from this institution and hence young people are encouraged to elope rather than to pursue a customarily-approved, negotiated marriage. Because elopement unions are not always long-enduring, however, a woman who has eloped and then been abandoned takes on the status of a 'second-hand woman'. She is less marriageable in the future, and she has less chance of fulfilling her own expectations about being properly and respectably married. Notes, ref., tab.