ABSTRACT
When Maneo marry (husawa) nearly every phase in the process is contested, in some cases the process is protracted, and the results are consequential to a marriage’s outcome. The outcomes vary; in hindsight some marriages are seen to begin auspiciously, others are not. Though much of what happens later to a couple are contingent events-a young spouse dies, the husband’s side succeeds or fails to mobilize sufficient marriage payments (arata), the couple have children or not-Maneo are quick to draw causal connections to earlier decisions, chiefly to choice of spouse. They see marriage as a kind of narrative just as they do the nexus of kin relations. The scenario described by marriage narrates a sequence of events initiated by espousal, followed by a gradual shift in orientations and practices that can extend over a lifetime. Marrying turns into being married, the state Lucretius describes above; a couple becomes a family. This understanding of marriage, as a sequence of events makes possible theories of causation and the assignment of actions to agents, and it opens space to ascribe motives to them. It renders marriage a domain of shared experience and a subject for conversation and speculation.
