"One Character,"
"Accustomedness," and "Love":
The Emotional States Understood as Usual in Close Relationships

Long presence in the same nearby houses is important, but more important yet is whether someone in one household sees someone in the other (always of the same sex and almost always women) as having tabia moja (lit., one character or disposition, i.e., being sympathetic to one another and/or similar in personality). This mutual attraction or similarity is said by several informants to be the surest source of close relations between individuals who are not kin and neighbors. The relatively few men and women who have lasting friendships with people who are neither kin nor neighbors also attribute the relationship to tabia moja.

Tabia moja is far less important for kin. The proverbs at the beginning of this chapter make clear the same thing that one observes and hears from infor-

mants: kin relations benefit from personal compatibility, but if the relationships are within the nuclear family, such personal preferences matter far less. Mazoezi (accustomedness) comes from long, close association, and I have been told repeatedly that with mazoezi, being mutually sympathic (i.e., tabia moja) is not an issue. Tabia moja refers to mutual affection and similarity of interests, while accustomedness makes this unnecessary since becoming "accustomed" to someone renders whatever lack of affection or incompatibility of interests there may be manageable and, eventually, unimportant.^[10]

As discussed earlier, one has love (upenzi ) for the parents and siblings and spouse with whom one lives, or, failing that, especially if they are stepparents or children, one is "accustomed" to them. Selections from the pool of possible associates made up of more distant kin and neighbors, however, is on the basis of personal compatibility, tabia moja. Accustomedness and/or love seems the basis of the household group where constant and close association takes place. Compatibility and mutual affection are enough for the less constantly demanding relations between more distant kin, neighbors, and friends. Fellow household members are rarely characterized as having tabia moja with the speaker, but close associates from outside the household frequently are.