Approaching abduction through narratives

Love and violence in a Hadiya village, southwestern Ethiopia

Abstract

Marriage by abduction stands out prominently among what the Ethiopian government has conceived, and therefore prohibited, as being 'harmful traditional practices' (HTP). The analysis of this kind of marriage, which is still commonplace in the Hadiya zone, aims at deconstructing the perception of violence that permeates life-cycle events from an ethical point of view. I discuss the gap between abduction as a 'harmful traditional practice' and contradictory findings, which show abductions are not always carried out without the consent of the girl and that many are even planned beforehand by the couple. I challenge stereotypical representations by discussing a selection of stories from some female actors living in a village buried deep in the countryside, which illustrate a version antithetical to western myths and in particular to the supposed universality of romantic love.