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’Female husband’ practice ’here to stay’
2006-04-02 07:58:11
By Rayner Ngonji
A crude ethnic custom of women marrying fellow women observed by the Kurya community in north-eastern Tanzania popularly known as Nyumba ntobu, is there to stay.
An elderly Kurya man, Mwita Marwa, told the Sunday Observer in an interview last week that his people would stick to the tradition because it is their identity and serves the purpose for which it was founded.
’’That is a custom we found when we were born and had to be passed on to subsequent generations; it cannot be abandoned just like that. We won’t be understood,’’ he declared.
He said it was easy to forget about it when a community member was in a foreign place like Dar es Salaam, but once the person returns home, he or she has to accept it, else, the ghosts would haunt him or her.
Nyumba ntobu is a marriage custom of maintaining wealthy lineage amongst families of the Kurya community where there are no male children.
Homosexuality is not part of the arrangement because the ’woman husband’ does not have sexual relationship with the woman proper.
Usually an elder woman pays a bride price for another woman and marries her. The woman she marries is free to choose any man, regardless of whether he is married or not, to procreate with.
The children then belong to the elder woman and not to the mother or father.
The elder woman is also free to choose a man she would prefer her wife to have sexual relations with.
The custom, however, has been condemned by health workers as one of the contributing factors to the spread of HIV/AIDS in the area.
But Marwa could not rule out the chances of contracting the disease in the process.
’’All this has been brought about by the lust for a heir.
Just imagine, you have 200 cows and you don’t have a son in your family who is supposed to take care of your property when you die, what do you do?’’
Under whatever circumstances you will be prompted to look for ’nyumba ntobu’ in the search for a son.
Under Kurya traditions, a son is the only child entitled to inherit all property left by his father if he dies.
’’The issue here is who will take care of the property when the father dies and nothing else,’’ Marwa maintained.
On whether the issue of breed is also taken into account when hiring a young man for the job, Marwa said that is left in the hands of God, athough Kuryas are generally healthy, well-built and tall.
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