Mysterious Nuer Wedding Customs B12英语2班费丽莎 121101224AbstractA wedding is a ceremony where two people are united in marriage.Wedding traditions and customs vary greatly between cultures, ethic groups,religions, countries, and social classes. Most wedding ceremonies involve an exchange of wedding vows by the couple, presentation of gifts( offering, rings,symbolic items, flowers, money), and a public proclamation of marriage by anauthority figure or leader. Special wedding garments are often worn, and the ceremony is sometimes followed by a wedding reception. Music, poetry, prayers or readings from religious texts or literature are also commonly incorporated into the ceremony.Marriage is sacred the world over, and that is definitely true in Africa , no matter which region or which culture you come from, and no matter what your religious beliefs. In this article, the author list the cryptic wedding customs of Nuer ,one of African nations , by revealing their cultures and wedding traditions and to make its culture clear.Key words: ghost marriage , nuer, cattle , Pater, genitorContent1.IntroductionGhost marriage: Marriage among the Nuer ,a woman is married to a dead man , this kind of marriage is almost as frequent as marriage to a living man . A living man is found to physically father a child for the dead man. To understand this, one must distinguish between the Genitor-biological father and the Pater- legal father. The ghost marriage often takes place when a man is killed in a feud. Blood wealth payments are used to pay the bride price for the dead man's marriage. The point is to fulfill the dead man's lineage and the children of the dead man may eventually avenge him, despite the payment of blood wealth . In this way , bride's wealth and blood wealth are fluid and tied together in a cycle.2.Nuer cattle culturesNuer is located in southern Sudan, whose territory has access to the White Nile, because the proximity to this river and the high annual rainfall, Nuer territory floods often and has lots of diverse wildlife with very dense jungle in most areas but also savannah and swamp .Therefore ,everything revolves around cattle in Nuer life, and cattle is essential for their survival as people. The payment of cattle is usually the only way to square up between wronged parties. Without this resource there is noway to resolves disputes. Cattle are cared for communally by many families, which also make the maintainer of the herd much easier and everyone benefits. In Nuer, the oldest male of the family is the official owner of their families' cattle. Cattle aregiven to sons when they get married so that they may begin to start their own herds. Kinship and interpersonal relationships are often defined by who has given cattle to whom.mon marriage in NuerMarriage among the Nuer is brought about by payment of bride wealth and by the performance of certain ceremonial rites. The rites cannot take place without the payments, but transfers of cattle do not by themselves bring about the union. Both are necessary and they proceed in a connected movement towards the full establishment of the union. Each enforces and reinforces the other. The bride's people can, by holding up the rites, put pressure on the bridegroom's people to make the payments due to them, and the bridegroom's people can, by withholding the cattle, induce the girl's family and kin to advance the ceremonies. First one pedal is pressed down and then the other as the marriage is propelled to its appointed end, the birth of children and the sharing of a home. It is understood that payments should have reached a certain point before a certain rite is held, and the performance of the rite is a recognition of the transfer of cattle up to that point. Payments of cattle and marriage rites therefore tend to alternate, though there is no fixity about the alternation and no marriage is exactly the same as another in this respect. The new social ties of conjugality and affinity are made stronger by each payment and by each ceremony, so that a marriage which is insecure at the beginning of the negotiations becomes surer with every new payment and rite; both sides, by the giving and receiving of cattle and by joint participation in the rites, becoming more deeply committed to bringing about the union. Therefore a marriage which has reached the final rites may be regarded as a stable union and will generally prove to be so.4.Ghost marriage in NuerGhost marriages take place when a wealthy or influential male member of a village dies without any living children. A woman will then marry his "ghost" at a ceremony, usually with the brother of the deceased as a stand-in. The wife is then said to be married to the ghost of the man, and can then have his children, using the brother to facilitate this. These children, although not biological children to the deceased, serve as heirs to his heritage and can inherit both his property and his status in a society. However, this means that the brother is usually left without any children of his own before he dies, and then he must have his children through a ghost marriage, creating a circle.In other words, a man marries a woman in the name of his deceased brother. The dead brother is regarded as the woman's husband, and her children consider his ghost to be their father. They call the man who is cohabiting with their mother by a term that normally means "uncle. And a woman can marry another woman, thus becoming the "father" of the children of the "wife". As part of this woman marriage among the Nuer, there is a distinction between the Pater and the genitor. The Pater is the term given to the woman who takes on the "husband" role. The genitor is a friend, neighbor, or kinsman of the Pater who is used to impregnate the wife of the Pater, and help around the homestead with certain tasks deemed unfit for women.In order for the marriage to become official, the Pater must pay a bride wealthpayment to the wife's lineage as would happen if a man were to marry a woman. This bride wealth usually consists of cattle or livestock. Aside from specific tasks given to the genitor, the Pater takes on almost all social roles of a man. If wealthyenough, the Pater is able to marry as many women as she likes. Furthermore, she is able to collect damage payment if her wives engage in sexual activity without her consent. In addition to this, she receives the bride wealth that would traditionally go toward the Husband if one of her daughters is to marry. In addition to this her children refer to her as "father." In other words, if a woman is barren, she may assume that the legal role of a man. She will marry a woman and used Genitor to father children. So kinship is constructed not simply natural. This system is imposed on seemingly natural patterns.ConclusionThe Nuer believed that a man who died without male heirs would leave an unsatisfied angry spirit behind to trouble his family. A woman would then be chosen to marry a family member of the dead man and the children produced by these two would be thought of as belonging to the man who died. So kinship is constructed not simply natural. This system is imposed on seemingly natural patterns.There are hundreds of thousands of wedding customs or even more we haven’t yet know profoundly around the world .Through this article , we can get a clear view on Nuer wedding customs and its of long standing culture..。