Marriage and Family:

     Ancient Samoan civilization consists of a hierarchical system in which there are chiefs that are responsible for maintaining the respect, traditions, and administration of the village called Matai. They are the head of their Samoan Villages and are responsible for preserving their values of language, family, and justice. The Samoan Matai are also responsible for land ownership policy and the Matai responsible accounts for  about 90% of land in Samoa to be owned by people of Samoan descent.

     Family is called Aiga in Samoa. It is the foundation of Samoan culture and the Matai are responsible for the upkeep of familial values in direct and distant relatives. Family is not only dictated by blood, but also by the village citizens in close vicinity. A woman can hold a Matai name and hold authority, but this is not common.

     Marriage in Samoan culture is highly valued, and weddings are notorious for being lavish. The entire village celebrates together and gives gifts. Members of the father’s and mother’s descent groups are forbidden as marriage partners and marriage within other samoan groups is promoted. This may explain why Samoan tribes have strong genetic diversity and genetic diseases are rarely passed down. The family of both the bride and the groom fund the wedding and provide the bride with various gifts and clothing. Two important ceremonies that the Samoans practice are the  wedding and the reception. The ceremony was previously done in traditional Samoan ceremony with their native religion that had a spiritual basis constituted by the elements of nature. However, because of the influence of the missionaries in the early 1960’s, majority of Samoan marriage ceremonies are done in the traditional Christian manner.

    Before Samoan culture was westernized, nuclear families were less prominent. Matai were responsible for their villages and everybody in the village acted as a family. If a child is born, the entire village would raise it. However, the Westernization of Samoan culture has made Matai less prominent than they used to be. Families are more divided to a degree, nuclear families have become a common aspect of Samoan culture.

Bibliography:

Fa’a Samoa

   2010: Marriage: The Samoan Way, Electronic document,      

      http://samoanculture.wordpress.com/marrige/, accessed July 15, 2013.

Goodman Richard   

1971: Some Aitu Beliefs of Modern Samoans: The Journal of the Polynesian Society, No. 80. Electronic document,

http://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/samoa/taulasea-and-    

       cultural-  continuity-samoa#sthash.RQqcf6Qh.dpuf, accessed July 15, 2013.

Lowell Holmes

1974: Samoan Village. Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Electronic Document, http://www.everyculture.com/Oceania/Samoa-Marriage-and-the-Family.html, accessed July 15, 2013.