To start off the summer, Sorosoro kicks off a whole new series of videos filmed a year ago in the Gabonese Akele community, devoted to the theme of marriage and its various side issues: footage raising questions as diverse as the choice of partners, proposal procedures, cost of dowry, rules regarding polygamy, adultery or widowhood.

These interviews bear a few surprises, at least for the most Western-minded of us. But basically what we’ll see is that there’s a politico-economic aspect to marriage in the Akele community, as in most African communities: marriages structure society, and involve property transfer. Which incidentally reminds that marriages arranged in the same perspectives in remote parts of Western Europe do not necessarily belong to a very distant past…

Equally perceptible in the interviews, the young generations, as always, tend to wish for different lifestyles than their parents and grandparents. Africa is also undergoing the big tradition shake-up…

The first of this series on marriage shines the light on the different changes in matrimonial customs of the contemporary Akele community, especially in regards to the choice of the partner who, for a long time, was designated by the elders (either the parents or grandparents). Youngsters nowadays refuse to follow the traditional standards, and tend to object to the idea of a partner they have not chosen themselves. Hence the obvious example of transgenerational marriage…

Jean Kédine tells us about all these changes in the following interview.

Linguist: Jean-Marie Hombert
Camera and sound: Luc-Henri Fage
Translation: Hugues Awanhet
Editing : Caroline Laurent