New Sources of Tension
A variety of factors have led to new sources of stress in Nuer marriages in the United States. This is, of course, to be expected, given the radical changes in daily life brought about in the transition from agro-pastoralist, to displaced person, to resettled refugee in the United States.
Concomitant with these lifestyle changes, men's and women's roles and responsibilities to one another are similarly transformed.One dimension of this is that men and women are in a variety of ways pushed closer together, both literally and figuratively. Among Nuer in Sudan, men and women are spatially divided, with women staying in their homes and men staying together with one another in the men's space, thokat. Similarly there is a well-defined gendered division of labor, with women assuming roles such as milking and cooking, and men in herding and the bulk of cultivation. In the United States, husbands and wives live together, usually in small one- or two-bedroom apartments, sleeping in the same room and frequently the same beds.
Accompanying this is significantly more mutual dependency between men and women in daily life. While there is a weak tendency toward men working and women staying home (particularly because of greater English competence among the men), there is significant intermingling of these roles. It may be difficult for women to singlehandedly manage the home-care roles for which they would be responsible in Sudan. In addition to aspects of life in the United States that render women's traditional roles more complex, they may have additional activities such as part-time work and/or English as a Second Language (ESL) classes. The absence of older people places the full burden of child care upon the couples themselves.
Consequently, substantial coordination and cooperation between husband and wife may be required for the care of the home and the children.
This may push men to assume roles from which they are culturally prohibited, particularly cooking, and may also force changes in male sociability. While going to a friend's house for a day or two in order to drink and socialize may be quite normal in Sudan, in the United States it may place undo strain upon the wife, particularly when an unforeseen event (e.g., a sick child) arises which the wife cannot effectively handle if she lacks linguistic competence.Among the primary sources of friction is insufficient money, as Nuer couples rely on public assistance and/or low-paying jobs. Disagreements frequently arise concerning how money should be spent, and women may suspect that men are hiding some portion of it in order to use it for things such as alcohol, or in order to remit it to their own relatives in Africa. This tendency toward suspicion over money may be a particular problem when money is placed in bank accounts. Because of low rates of literacy, women cannot verify the amount of money placed in bank accounts, and may have a difficulty accessing it (if only because of an inability to write checks).
Issues of money further play themselves out in ways directly related to transformations in the conjugal bond associated with displacement and resettlement in the United States. Frequently the marriages of Nuer couples did not occur in ways that render them fully legitimate within Nuer culture. While Nuer marriage traditionally entails the transfer of approximately twenty to twenty-five cows from the family of the groom to the family of the bride, this was generally not possible for couples marrying in refugee camps, in transit, or in the United States. While they generally maintain that these cows will be paid by relatives (if they have not been already), this normally takes the form of the remittance of funds to purchase cows, or as payment in lieu of cows. Without such payments, the very legitimacy of the union, and hence the status of the women, is subject to scrutiny.
While Nuer remaining in Africa understand the problems which have caused difficulties in performing the marriage in the prescribed manner, it is considered important to compensate for this in other ways—particularly through cash remittances. Failure to do so may indicate that a couple is, perhaps, not truly married, and that the wife might be regarded as being of dubious character, having simply run off with a man rather than being married properly.A final new source of significant stress in Nuer marriages is quite simply new forms of gender relations that are brought about by life in the United States. While in Sudan men may wield considerable control over their wives, women find that in the United States they may enjoy much more freedom to do as they please. These messages are to some extent promoted through social service agencies, as well as simply being apparent to Nuer women who see the behavior of American women in the wider culture. While in principle many Nuer men may accept that women could be allowed more freedom—as they understand American women to have—many maintain that their women are “too primitive” and do not have the abilities, the social skills, and the judgment to exercise that freedom in a proper way. Consequently, while women may be more prepared to question the judgment of their husbands, their husbands are not always correspondingly prepared to accept it.
These factors, then, conspire to produce considerable tension in the marriages of many Nuer living in Wacohtia. I will now turn to transformations in processes of domestic violence and conflict resolution itself, examining the ways in which changed kinship structure and political-legal context have changed the way in which these processes take place.