King Solomon’s one thousand weddings. Being a polygamous man and born royal, Solomon took for himself one thousand wives with the aim of strengthening his kingdom by making treaty with the surrounding kingdoms. All the girls he married were from royal families, the daughters of the kings of the kingdoms he made treaty with. His first wedding was with the black lady, the daughter of Egyptian king; and it is also believed that he had sexual relationship with queen of Sheba of Ethiopia. In history of marriages he is considered as the man who has married the most, but all were done with the aim of making peace with the kingdoms that surrounded him. Like Solomon had the particular aim to marry all the women he took for himself, most American people and Malawian people get married with the aim of being settled in life. Though there is few similarities in the way people in America and Malawi get married, there is also huge difference in the way they practice their weddings; and especially with the American people having the choice of type of sex to get married to.

Wedding play a very big role in starting families in Malawi, you cannot just pick up a girl and be living with her as a life partner without officially getting married to her. If you want to be settled and have a family, you first look for a girl of your wish and then you make a proposal to her through her uncle by your uncle, where the woman’s uncle charge you the bride price “lobora”, but this varies with tribes because some tribes do not charge bride price, but you still pay a little something as pledge to marry their daughter. The only marriage that is lawful in Malawi is between a man and a woman. There are three recognised types of weddings in Malawi, which are civil, religious and traditional marriages. The civil marriage is where a man and a woman take their vows before the registrar of the DC’s (District Commission) office, they simply book appointment date for their wedding with the office, and later on have the party somewhere if they want to. The religious wedding is the biggest celebration in the country to the people who are getting married and their families, and it most of the time involve a lot of money and preparation work; the couple make their vows at the church “if they are Christians”, or at the mosque “if they are Muslims”. When I was getting married to my wife, I remember we bought about a half of the size of cow meat, two tonne of fire wood, about a 100kg of rice and many other things because we knew that we were calling our friends and relatives from everywhere, so it would be a very big day for us; we spent about $8000 just for the preparations. But the traditional type of wedding can sometime be made before the big day of the religious wedding as an official marriage proposal locally known as “chinkhoswe” or it can be taken as the official marriage itself, this depends on tribe and/or place of origin of the couple; and it is cheaper because it does not involve a lot of things. Same sex marriage is not recognised in Malawi and has gone through so many tempts in the country, like the other time some men tried to make their marriage official and public; Englund (2021) said, “The event was an engagement ceremony (unkhoswe) rather than a full-blown wedding (ukwati)” (P. 01). This engagement people actually thought that it was just the test of what government think about this kind of marriage, Englund (2021) said, “the couple were sentenced by the courts and then pardoned by president Bingu Wa Mutharika” (P. 01). This truly may be just the pressure to the president by the donor community not really his consciousness, for western donors tie this kind of culture to the financial aid, which I disagree with that because different people will always have different faith. Like to this one what Englund (2021) said, “…Lucius Banda, for example, stopped his live performance abruptly in 2015 after he spotted two male members of the audience in a romantic embrace” (P. 02). The musician acted like this because of his conscious about his faith, and no one could force him to see what he did not want to see. But still more though there is a law against same sex marriage, “there had been an inconsistency of the Malawi government in applying policy criminalizing LGBT,” (Arisanto & Pratiwi 2020, p. 01) I believe that this is because of donors’ pressure on the government of Malawi. Polygamous is also practiced in many parts of Malawi. But so far in every marriages that are legal in Malawi, couple have to sort the blessing from their parents first for them to get married, this is why the man’s uncle is the one who make marriage proposal to the bride to be through her uncle.

I little know about the wedding in America, but the very common thing to every people in the world, if the person would want to settle with the family is to find the person they can settle with first. Two types of wedding are practiced in America, that is the common law marriage and the licensed marriage. The common law is where couple agree to live together as married people, but today this type of marriage is recognised in very few states of America. The legal marriage is where the couple are issued with the license for them to live together as married people, and this license can be issued by either the religion or the state authority, that is the clerk of the county or city. Legal wedding is the big function both to the couples and their families, that includes the ceremony and the reception. Today in America one can marry to the sex of their wish, whether to an opposite sex called straight couple, or to the same sex as theirs called gay/lesbian couple. But the later has went through its test over the years, as the males were criminal offence to practice this kind of relationship but the female could wrestle with medical intervention and religious condemnation, (Reynolds & Robinson 2016, p.8). But in late 1990s/early 2000s the community started embracing them, Renolds & Robinson(2016) said, “by the 1990s, representation of gay men and lesbians in popular culture had become more common.” (p.40). Weddings most of the times come with the tradition of bridal party, a party that is meant to prepare the girl child by providing her furniture, (Montemurro 2006, p.22), its beginning was meant for bride to be, because she has fallen in love with a poor man so the father does not want his daughter to suffer in marriage. At the wedding can be so many entertainment, like hired stripper who perform at the wedding party in semi-public, (Montemurro 2006, p.20). In all these kind of marriage there is one common thing in them, the couple had to agree to stay together first, then they inform their relatives and friends about their plan, they prepare for their wedding and they book a day with clerk or priest when they would be issued the license for their marriage.

The American wedding and Malawian wedding may have few distinctive similarities, but they are too different from each other as they are practiced by people very different in their culture. In both cultures marriage is not done by force, the woman has to be asked of her opinion, whether she would want to marry the man in question or not. They both go either to the government authorities or the priest to register their marriages, and after the ceremony they both have time with their relatives and friends to celebrate their big day, and there after they go somewhere to spend their honeymoon. Their differences come especially because of how they practice what looks like are their similarities. First let me say that it looks okay in America, when the man has a girlfriend and they live together even though they are not married yet, but it is not advisable in Malawi for a woman to leave her parents’ house to go and stay with her boyfriend even though their intention to marry is well known by everyone; they must wait until they get married. In America it is the clerk who issue the marriage certificate on the behalf of the government, while in Malawi it is the DC’s office registrar. In Malawi they celebrate by casting money to the married people at the reception, but in America at the reception there is only eating and dancing. Malawi does not have the culture of same sex marriage, but in America you have a choice of sex you prefer to marry. But it is seen clearly that the culture of same sex faced opposition in both countries. In America there was punishments spread throughout against the practice, (Reynolds & Robnison, 2016, p 9); Malawi added anti-gay law in her constitution in 2010, (Arisanto & Pratiwi, 2020, para 1). And in both countries people have ever felt guilty of the action of same sex relationship, for Helen did never spoke to anyone about her sexual attraction to the fellow female, (Reynolds & Robnison, 2016, p 83); and Chawamba wrote a poem “Takana Mathanyula” in refuse of same sex relationships, (Englund, 2021, p 6). Consequently their difference separate them into parallel cultures: But despite of the huge differences these cultures have there is one aim that brought them into existence, that is one would want to settle in family life, but has to first give a proposal to the person they have loved, then follow all legal processes of marriage to fulfil their wish.

Weddings have been seen to be important events both to the people of America and Malawi and their families and friend, and they play a big role in life of the two countries to let the people to marry each other. Their similarities lie in the aim of getting marriage and the procedure of getting into marriage, for each of them go to either the government or their religious leaders. The differences are being the way they implement these procedures, their types of marriage and their believes or practices. As America is seen practicing same sex marriage which makes the people to have two options of sex they can be married to, but on the other hand Malawi prohibits this practice in their land. The culture of bridal party has been introduced with the aim to help up the bride to start her life in marriage smoothly; and in Malawi uncles of both groom and bride play an important role of proposing the girl for marriage. As the similarities try to narrow the gap  of their differences, but still more their differences are too huge that they making the cultures to be on two parallel lines.

Reference

Englund, H. (2021). Love and homophobia in Malawi’s spoken-word poetry movement. Africa. 2021;91(3):361-387. doi:10.1017/S0001972021000255

Arisanto, P. T. & Pratiwi, T. S. (2020). Kebijakan Kriminalisasi LGBT Malawi Di Tengah Pengaruh Kelompok Kepentingan dan Politik Bantuan Luar Negeri. Jurnal Ilmiah Hubungan Internasional, 16(1). https://doi.org/10.26593/jihi.v16i1.3297.69-86

Montemurro, B. (2006) Something Old, Something Bold : Bridal Showers and Bachelorette Parties, Rutgers University Press. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/lwtclearningcommons-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1021847.

Reynolds, R., & Robinson, S. (2016). Gay & lesbian, then and now : Australian stories from a social revolution (1st ed.). Black Inc.