09/06/2025
Debatable Perspective: Forced Marriages Among the Jieng Community.
Recently, a wild social media raucous of the disheartening and misunderstood case of Alam and Bossman grasped the attention of the whole nation and beyond. Even Allan the Degree Holder commented on the incident. I won't delve into minute details of the whole incident---we all know what transpired.
We, myself shamelessly included, made fun of the whole situation because another person's stomachache doesn't drag any of us to a toilet. As I reflected on various marriages I have heard of and witnessed in my life, I realized that our sisters have been physically and emotionally abused for ages to satisfy the male figure. Alam outrightly stated in the video how she felt--suicidal, scared and neglected by her family whom she had leaned on her whole life. Contrary to the final verdicts of the social media judges, Alam has experienced forced marriage in it's entirety.
What's Forced Marriage?
Simply put, it refers to a marriage in which one party is coerced into it through physical force, emotional manipulation or threats.
The Characteristics of Forced Marriage incude:
1. At least one party is unwilling to join the union. This is usually portrayed at the beginning of marriage negotiations. If people refuse to put her/his opposition into consideration and continue with the arranged marriage, a person could later refuse to have coitus after marriage, making an entitled person forced themselves on the other--- a terrible household GBV case.
2. Unwillingness to marry is verbally or emotionally expressed. A young person may be incapable of posessing assertiveness skills---due to lack of experience and a brain fully developed to handle sticky situations, hence they may not express their emotions verbally nor loud enough. Instead, their real emotions and thoughts will be evident on their faces, gaits or posture when around the spouse-to-be and his/her supporters and we should judge it based on that.
3. Hours of convincing an individual into marriage are spent either by her parents, suitors or relatives. In Jieng Culture, when a girl refuses to marry a rich man (a guy with some animals we are obsessed with), her mother, aunties, grandmothers and other prominent female figures in the community are 'hired' by a father who wants to exchange her daughter for wealth, to convince the girl for days and exhaust her with too much verbosity, manipulation----threats of how horrible life could turn out if she continues to reject the man. "If he marries you, our family will be forever enriched and our problems would end. Why are you too selfish towards your own family who took care of you? How will you ever repay your father if not through this dowry price of 400 cows?" they would tell her.
Agitated and worn out, she relents and finally says yes. Instead of remembering the old folklore monkey's adage, "looŋ nhom tweŋ yën ya yic", everyone ignores everything she had said from the onset, abruptly grab her last statement with both hands and dangle it outside of the room, cheering and dancing in the compound. The rich guy finally has a wife! A joy indeed.
A bull is slaughtered, people feast and marriage is conducted. A sham marriage, of a girl worn down by mothers suffering from Stockholm Syndrome in their own marriages.
Recommendation:
Let our girls fall in love, guide them to choose the right partner and allow them to express their emotions and let them marry at the time of their choosing. It doesn't matter whether you are female or male, we all deserve to marry who we love, respect and adore. Nobody deserves to live forever with a heavy heart just because a dowry or political marriage was needed to solve South Sudan hard knock penury that has trampled upon many families.
This piece is open to constructive criticism. I believe it's time our society adjust from backward ways that limit human freedom. It's time.
