Aboriginal marriage laws were severely disrupted through European invasion and the introduction of the Christian religion, despite continued efforts by the old people to force adherence to traditional law. Stories (and punishments) of a ‘west coast man’ taking an ‘east coast woman’, have their roots in the Dreaming,[16] but the dislocation of invasion and settlement increased the possibility of new relationships and conflict. Just the presence of the white people offered an alternative. A significant element in Idriess’ story of the runaways is that in leaving their land and people, the couple had an alternative place to go because of the Europeans. Taylor tells of an eloping couple that took refuge on a cattle station to escape punishment.[17] Cautionary stories of ‘runaways’ may have lost some of their power once new freedoms were glimpsed.
Family opposition was a test to the strength of feeling and commitment of young couples. Objection to prospective sons-in-law was considered a healthy tradition even when it involved threats and violence. Though romantic love was not disregarded, marriages served other purposes. Bound to tradition and an intricate network of kinship, spirituality, land and languages, marriage laws could not be treated lightly.
Gladys Williams’ family at Pormpuraaw fought over her husband. The couple weren’t ‘married’ in a State marriage, but living together. They had two boys.[18] The family did not approve Gladys’ choice and her mother had arranged a traditional marriage with another man. The fighting got so bad that Government and Mission authorities sent Gladys and her husband to Palm Island after her husband speared her uncle.[19] When the couple returned after five years of exile, Gladys’ husband and her brother-in-law had to fight and ‘talk for him’ before they could ‘settle down’. The couple were married the Christian way.[20] Conversion to Christianity made Gladys’ marriage possible by giving it an authority that was counter to traditional law, though the social consequences remained formidable.
While some young people rebelled against it, the main objection to traditional marriages came from the Churches.[21] Missionaries were clearly opposed to the marriage of young women to old men and to polygamy. Ina Hall of Weipa, and from the earlier established site of 20 Mile Mission, describes the enclosure of girls in dormitories by the missionaries to control marriage.[22]
That’s when Missionary said ‘No, no, no … God say no more, only one wife’ … [Aboriginal men said] ‘No, no, no. You can’t take that another woman from me. No, that’s my wife!’ (they spoke language). [Missionary said] ‘Only one woman, you only allowed to have one woman’. They fight over it.[23]
Objection to multiple wives was inherent in European/Christian traditions. The cross-generational issue would seem to be related to more romantic values, culturally expressed in literature. The European sentiment exemplified in stories such as Tristan and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet, or novels such as Charles Dickens’ Bleak House or George Eliot’s Middlemarch, idealised a romantic love based on youth. The patriarch or old man, whether the arranger of marriages or the promised groom, is figured as an obstacle. Young — similar aged — love was a relatively modern European ideal and although incorporated into ‘Christian values’ can hardly be seen as Biblical. European romantic feeling had been through its own revolution against ‘traditional’ values, and it is worth noting that these ‘mythic’ European romances were often tragic, involving social and civil conflict.
Geraldine MacKenzie compared herself and her husband favourably with earlier missionaries who objected to arranged marriages.[24]
With the proviso made at Aurukun in the late twenties that the bridegrooms chosen for mission girls should be single and reasonably young, marriages backed by the agreement of all relations of both bride and groom, lasted happily. Early missionaries, before they had time to realise this, had tried to foster a freer, more romantic order of things, understandable to our European way of feeling.[25]
The MacKenzies realised that attachment to ‘right’ arranged marriages was so strong that a complete objection to them would only increase community turmoil. A ‘freer, more romantic order of things’ led to conflict, violence, social upheaval and instability.
Christian marriage, and its association with romantic love, freed Aboriginal men and women from traditional arranged marriages. As a child, Dulcie Costello used to hide when her betrothed, an old man, came to visit. Dulcie was immensely relieved when he died: ‘Oooh, terrible! Imagine being happy ’cause someone dies, but I was that scared’.[26] Gordon Pablo explained the system of promising and initiation at Injinoo, which ensured that young men and women were ready for marriage.[27] But Gordon did not marry his promised wife.
Well, I had promised one but — after that coming Christianity coming now everything changed. Christianity was there now.
And, ah, promised one, like I don’t know, I got no feeling for that promised one.
So she married another man, I married another woman.[28]
The introduction of Christianity and a different set of laws could be personally liberating, allowing young men and women to follow their hearts.
New ways seemed to provide new freedoms but entailed a lack of choice as access to the old ways was denied. The new freedoms came with new rules and limitations that were set and policed at the discretion of the missionary, Church and State. An increase in individual freedom was thus connected to a cultural loss and a decrease in observance of tradition.