by Stuart Brown

Stuart Brown has been the executive director of the Canadian Centre for Ecumenism. He has worked for many years in both Africa and Canada on interreligious relations. He is the author of The Nearest in Affection.

Ce document est aussi disponible en français : Le Mariage : une institution céleste ou humaine  ?.

Ever since the beginning of human society each community has developed a domestic structure, mainly to assure the education (in the "primitive" sense of the term) of children, and to arrange the sexual life of men and women. I know only one exception to this general rule, but the fact that I know even one exception suggests that there could be others.

I take the liberty of telling you about the exception which I know. In Sudan, near the Ethiopian border, live the people called Udok. In the middle of the twentieth century three American missionaries (a couple and a single woman) settled among the Udok to witness to their faith. They set about learning the language of the area and translating the Bible into this language. But they faced two major cultural challenges.

First, these people did not seem to have any idea of the "facts of life." The women lived together in a few large houses, where the men would visit them. The missionaries encouraged those who showed some interest in their message to join together in couples, and every couple thus formed received a house within the mission compound. The other problem concerned the parties which the people offered each other when each farmer planted his fields or harvested his crops. On these occasions people would drink a lot of beer, and the missionaries wanted to wean them from all alcoholic beverages.

Eventually, the Sudanese government expelled all the foreign missionaries. The subjects of our story had just finished their translation of the New Testament, and the first five thousand copies had arrived in the camp just as the translators were preparing to depart. So they said good-bye to their home of twenty years, but they left the Bibles on their kitchen table. Fifteen years later, the government had allowed the missionaries to return, and the couple went to visit their old neighbourhood. Instead of bush trails, they found a wide road, and everywhere they noticed buildings with crosses. When they reached their former home, they were surprised to be welcomed by a large crowd in celebration, with a huge meal awaiting their attention. The chief explained: We read the book which you had left. In its pages we learned that God wants us to live in couples, so we changed our ancestral practice. Now we are all members of this Church, and we live in our respective households. But we did not find a good reason to stop drinking beer, so we continue to enjoy it, especially at seedtime and harvest, even though we have adopted rules against drunkenness.

That is how the Udok came to adopt the institution of marriage. They thus joined the vast majority of human societies. But the fact that each faith community has developed its own rules gives us an intriguing range of perspectives on a universal phenomenon. I am sorry that I do not know more about the particular forms and rites used by the Udok, but we are pleased to offer you in the following pages a small sampling of a few communities represented in Canada. I wish you pleasure in reading them.