In the traditional setting of the Shona, no individual choice was implemented without blessings from the family because it was always a communal affair, never an individual affair, in most aspects of life. However, with the advent of Christianity among the Shona, religion was an individual choice, conversion was an individual decision, confirmation was an individual decision, education was an individual decision, living arrangements were an individual decision, getting married was an individual decision and having children was an individual decision. A little elaboration on the last two aspects can help to clarify this point further.
4.3.6.1 Marriage
As has been noted earlier, in the Shona tradition everyone was expected to get married and there were structures in place to assist those who delay in marriage. Firstly, they had the custom of musengabere242 for women and kupindira243 for men. Secondly those who did not marry were stigmatised tsikombi for women and tsvimborume for men (these customs were discussed in detail in chapter three). Such people are said to have zvitsinha which means people with bad luck caused by alien spirits. “That woman could be sexually attracted to woman was even less admissible. The only possibility for a woman to avoid heterosexual
242 Musengabere was a system that worked in two ways. Firstly, if a man loves a girl but is not confident enough
to propose, he would arrange with his relatives and send a delegation of strong men to go and carry the girl from her parent‟s home without the knowledge of either the girl or her parents. This is more like socially approved kidnapping! After a couple of days the young man‟s family will send a delegation to inform the girl‟s parents that they wish to marry their daughter. Secondly, the custom of Musengabere could also take place in the case of a girl late in marriage. Arrangements were made to carry the girl to her arranged husband.
243 Kupindira was a custom which also worked in two ways. Firstly, if a man delays in marriage the family will
make arrangements with an interested girl and while the man is in bed a girl is brought in for him as his wife. Secondly, when a man is not able to have children the family will arrange without his knowledge that one of the relatives goes in and sleeps with the wife, until she conceives.
marriage leading to childbirth was to become a healer or prophetess”244 Rev Brandon Graaff noted that, at times the extent to which people were forced into marriage could be harsh:
Though extreme measures may have been rare, they were occasionally resorted to… an adamant daughter might be fastened to the ground and a fire built besides her and fanned until in sheer agony she consented to the arrangements. With the coming of the Christian teacher, the question became more complex and the girls began to ask, “Why should we leave our village with its Christian teacher, where we are each day learning about God who loves us; and go to a man we do not want to marry and live in a village where we will no longer be taught about God” One such girl fled to Moleli for protection.245
With the missionaries‟ approach to marriage there was an option of getting married or not. Of course for missionaries homosexuality was unacceptable but their approach made it possible to conceal one‟s homosexual orientation and still live peacefully under the protection of religious orders. Thus, without any obligation to marry, indigenous people with a homosexual inclination had room to develop relationships as long as they did not talk about it.
4.3.6.2 Children
Heterosexual marriage resulting in successful pregnancy was a vocation that children were taught from their earliest years. Epprecht clarifies that:
producing children was the defining characteristic of social adulthood for both woman and man. To remain childless or to be impotent was to remain a perpetual child oneself… For a woman or man to choose to elicit universal condemnation of family and community for the love of another man or woman was an absurd and dangerous life choice.246
244244 March Epprecht, ““Good God Almighty, What is this!”: Homosexual “Crime” in Early Colonial
Zimbabw”e in Stephen O. Murray and Will Roscoe, ed., Boy-Wives and Female Husbands: Studies of African
Homosexualities (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998), 202.
245 Brandon Graaff, Mudomedi Moleli: Teacher, Evangelist and Martyr to Charity: Mashonaland 1892-96. p.
79.
246 March Epprecht, “Good God Almighty, What is this!”: Homosexual “Crime” in Early Colonial Zimbabwe in
Stephen O. Murray and Will Roscoe, ed., Boy-Wives and Female Husbands: Studies of African Homosexualities (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998), 202.
The logic behind having polygamous marriages was to maximise the probability of having children. However, the Christian practice of discouraging polygamy and encouraging lifelong monogamous marriages where having children can be optional was working to minimise the probability of having children. Procreation was no longer considered as the primary purpose of marriage. This view was in complete contrast with the Shona understanding. It can therefore be argued that, with children no longer central in sexual relationships, and having children now a matter of personal choice not obligation, an opportune scenario was created that homosexuals could have seized.
The argument here is that even though missionaries seemed to have been reticent on homosexuality, creative reading of the text can exhume very useful information that suggests otherwise, as demonstrated above.