writing assignment #5

Book Title: The Emancipation of Women – An African Perspective

Author: Florence Abena Dolphyne

Chapter 1: Traditional Practices

Every human society has a body of beliefs that regulate the way people

behave and relate to each other in the society. Over the years, these beliefs and

modes of behaviour are modified to suit the changing circumstances of the society

concerned. African societies are no exception. What is different, however, is that

as a result of the contact with Western civilization and the uneven influence that

this civilization has had on African societies, one finds in every country a contrast

between a very Westernized society usually comprising the educated people in the

urban cent res and a traditional rural society whose beliefs and way 'of life often

show that they have hardly been touched by Western culture.

In this chapter, we will consider some aspects of African culture which have

a particular bearing on the issue of women's emancipation. These are customs,

traditions and beliefs which have, over the years, helped to keep women under

subjugation, and to make them feel generally inferior to men and incapable of

operating at the same level as men in society. These are: the institution of marriage

with its related issues of bride-wealth, child-marriage, polygamy, purdah,

widowhood and inheritance of property, high fertility and puberty rites with

specific reference to female circumcision.

Marriage

The institution of marriage is a very important one in all African societies. It

is primarily a union between two families, rather than between two individuals.

Traditionally, marriages are arranged between two families. When a young man

decides he wants a particular woman for his wife, he tells his parents about it, and

it then becomes the parents' responsibility and that of elders of the extended family

to ask for the woman's hand from her parents. Before this is done, the parents try to

find out all they can about the woman's family, whether there are any chronic or

hereditary illnesses such as mental disorders in the family, whether there are any

known criminals in the family, whether the women in the family are known to be

respectful and hardworking or not and so on. These are important matters that are

known to ensure the stability or otherwise of a marriage. Emotional attachment

between husband and wife was supposed to develop later, and therefore love

between a young man and a young woman was not in itself considered legitimate

grounds for marriage. If the young man's parents are not satisfied with what they

find out, they will tell their son that he should look for someone else, or suggest

somebody they approve of to him. In the same way, when a woman's family has

been approached with a proposal of marriage from the man's parents, they also

investigate the man's background and decide whether or not they would want their

daughter to marry into that family.

It must be emphasized that the success of a marriage, even in modern times,

depends to a considerable extent, on whether or not the two families are agreeable -

to the union, otherwise the several occasions, such as a child-naming ceremony, a

wedding or a funeral, during which the two families will have to interact, may very

well become a serious source of irritation and conflict that may result in the

breakdown of the marriage. Even today, the educated urban young man and

woman, who believe they are in love and would like to get married would do all

they can to persuade their parents to agree to the union, that is if the parents are not

happy about the relationship, rather than go to the marriage registrar's office to get

married against their parents' wishes. A young man and a woman living in Britain,

Europe, America or anywhere else outside their own country, would not normally

go through with a marriage ceremony until the man's parents have gone to ask for

the woman's hand from her family. There are cases of Ghanaian young couples

who meet while studying in Britain or America and get married without their

parents' formal consent. However, before they return home to Ghana, or, as

sometimes happens, soon after returning home, the man asks his relations to go to

the woman's family to perform the necessary marriage custom so that the marriage

would be recognized by the two families, and their children accepted by both

families. If this is not done, and there is a funeral in, say, the woman's family, the

man will be treated as an outsider and not as an in-law, and the same will apply to

the woman if there is a funeral in the man's family. In this way, the society ensures

that every marital union is properly a union between two families. This also means

that normally divorce cannot be effected until members of both families have

failed in their various attempts at reconciliation between husband and wife. Such

attempts at reconciliation may even involve people outside the two families, such

as respected elders in the community, especially, elders of religious bodies.

It must be mentioned, however, that in African societies, a man, his wife and

his children do not constitute a family. The nuclear family as understood in

Western societies is a new concept in African societies. Family, in the African

sense, is the extended family. If it is a patrilineal society, where descent is traced

through one's father, then it includes all the paternal relations - paternal uncles,

aunts, cousins, nephews, nieces and so on. If it is a matrilineal society, where

lineage is through the mother, then it includes all maternal relations.

Throughout Africa, there are three types of marriage that a man may opt for

- marriage under Customary law, in which he can marry as many women as he

feels he can support financially; Moslem marriage, in which a man can marry up to

four women; and Ordinance marriage (including Christian marriage) in which a

man can only have one wife at a time. These reflect the three major cultures that

have influenced African societies.

Moslem and Ordinance marriages have certain provisions which normally

guarantee, to some extent, certain rights for a wife and children, and these are

fairly uniform irrespective of the traditions and customs of the particular African

society. The rights of a wife and children in Customary law marriages, on the other

hand, are determined by the traditions of the particular African society. For

example, in a patrilineal society, where lineage is traced through the father, the

woman on marriage may become a member of her husband's extended family, and

so are any children born in the marriage, as is the practice in many parts of eastern

and southern Africa. However, in some patrilineal societies, such as those of the

Ga and Dangme of Ghana, a woman is never a member of her husband's family,

although her children are. In matrilineal societies such as those found in parts of

West Africa, a woman and her children never belong to the husband's family.

Aspects of Customary law marriage such as the giving of bride-wealth, child-

marriage, widowhood and the inheritance of property are discussed below. For the

moment it is sufficient to say that the majority of African women are married

according to the traditions of their particular societies. Even those married under

the Ordinance or Moslem law usually complete the procedures of Customary law

marriage, sometimes referred to by such people as the 'engagement ', before they

go to the marriage registrar's office, or to the church to have the marriage

registered and/or solemnized. This, in a sense, means that such couples have been

married twice. In the Moslem system, the marriage ceremony may take place in the

home in the presence of the Imam or any other person authorized to register a

marriage.

Before I leave off the institution of marriage, let me mention something

which, for the moment, is a non-issue for African women. This is the question of

who does what in the home. Every African woman grows up knowing that it is the

woman who cooks the meals and generally sees to it that the house is clean and

well-kept, and that everything is in its proper place. Whatever her level of

education or professional status, she does not normally expect her husband to share

the household chores with her. If the husband enjoys cooking and chooses to cook

breakfast or dinner one day, she appreciates the fact that he is being helpful, but

she does not expect him to do so as a matter of course. Husbands who, when they

were living with their wives in Europe or America, willingly did the washing up or

the laundry, put an end to that as soon as they return to Africa. The wives do not

normally protest because they know their society does not expect a man to do such

chores, and they will, therefore, not receive a sympathetic hearing even from their

own relations, if they complained.

In general, most professional women employ house-helps to do the basic

chores in the home. Very often, the salary of a house-help is the responsibility of

the woman, for it is taken for granted that the person is there to do her job for her.

And, not surprisingly, many professional women do not make a fuss about this,

because they know the wider society is not yet ready to see any change in the

present domestic arrangements. They cannot, therefore, expect sympathy or

support for any move for such a change, especially when there are more important

issues that affect the status and welfare of women.

It must be mentioned, though, that with urbanization and the need for a man

and his wife to be working full-time in order to have a reasonable standard of

living, one finds that husbands in lower-income homes, who cannot afford to

engage the services of a house-help, are helping their wives with such chores as

doing the laundry at the week-end or taking care of the children when the wife is

cooking. Such people constitute only a small fraction of the population, but I

mention it because it is an encouraging trend, even though it is bound to remain a

limited urban phenome on for many years. One may also mention the fact that even

among traditional rural farming communities, such as those of the Asante of

Ghana, when a man and his wife move out of the village to live alone on their farm

during the planting or harvest season, the man often assists the wife with some of

the household chores, although this stops as soon as they move back into the bigger

village community. This situation is very similar to that described above in relation

to the African husband in Europe or America whose attitude to housework changes

as soon as he returns home to Africa. It would appear, therefore, that the attitude of

at least some African men to helping their wives at home is primarily dictated by

the fear of their being ridiculed by the wider society as being dominated by their

wives, an attitude that will take a long time to change.

Another marriage-related issue that may be mentioned here is that of the

legitimacy of children born outside marriage. It has been stated above that a man

may opt for one of three types of marriage. Customary law and Moslem marriage

are potentially polygamous, while Ordinance (including Christian) marriage is

monogamous. If a man opts for monogamy, he cannot have another wife while the

marriage persists. However, any children that he has outside wedlock are

considered legitimate, for in African societies legitimacy is determined by

paternity. An 'illegitimate' child is one whose putative father refused to accept

responsibility for the pregnancy that brought him into the world. In general,

however, because a child is born into an extended family, the fact that he does not

have a father does not normally create for him the complex problems that his

counterpart in the Western world, for example, has to grapple with. This is because

there is nothing in African societies like the stigma that goes with illegitimacy in

Western societies.

The question of illegitimacy is one which, in recent years, is being discussed

in some African countries where women married in a monogamous system feel

that children born outside wedlock should not be accorded the same rights as those

born within it. Opponents of this view argue that the concept of illegitimacy is

foreign to African culture, and that it should not be introduced into our legal

system, especially since it is known that, in some cultures the stigma of

illegitimacy has very serious adverse effects on children so regarded. In Ghana, the

Law on Intestate Succession, passed in 1985, confirms the traditional view on

legitimacy of children and stipulates that all children that a man has, inside and

outside wedlock, have equal interest in his property.

Bride-Wealth

Before a marriage is effected, gifts are normally exchanged between the

families of the bride and the groom. However, what is provided by the groom is

always substantially higher in value than what is provided by the bride, which, in

some societies like the Ga or Akan of Ghana, consists of a meal that is shared by

both families. In some southern African societies such as the Swazi of Swaziland,

the bride gives expensive colourful blankets for selected in-laws. In the

predominantly traditional non-literate society, the exchange of gifts is meant to be

evidence of a contract of marriage between the two families.

In all African societies, it appears that what is given by the man, or in some

cases demanded from him, as bride-wealth is determined by various factors. One

of these is the status of the woman's family in the particular community, for

example, whether or not she comes from a royal family or a family of wealthy and

influential men and women. Another is the status of the woman herself, for

example, whether or not she has had any formal education, and if she has, what

level of education she has attained. Another important factor in determining the

value of the bride-wealth appears to be whether the society concerned is

matrilineal or patrilineal.

African societies can be broadly divided into two major types, matrilineal,

where lineage is traced through the mother, and children born in a marriage belong

to the mother's family; or patrilineal, where lineage is through the father and the

children belong to the father’s family. The bride-wealth given by a prospective

husband to his would-be bride is generally much higher in patrilineal societies.

This is because it is considered that the woman's family is going to lose her

services, for example, on the farm, and she is also going to have children for the

man's family to ensure its continuity, so in a sense, the man has to compensate her

family adequately for these services that she would be performing for him. This is

particularly true of the cattle-rearing societies of southern and eastern Africa,

where a woman becomes part of a man's family on marriage. In these societies, a

man may give anything between twenty and sixty cows for a wife. In some of these

societies, such as among the Swazi, where the man cannot provide the total herd of

cattle required as bride-wealth at the time of the marriage, an arrangement can be

made for him to provide them in instalments. If he is unable to provide all of it

before his death, his son will have to do that for him; otherwise, it will be a source

of disgrace for both the man and the woman.

Women in such marriages have very little power. If they are ill-treated, they

cannot normally ask for divorce because their parents will have to give back to the

man the total herd of cattle that he gave as bride-wealth, and invariably the family

would not be in a position to do so. The amount of ill-treatment that some of the

women in such marriages put up with can be quite severe·. Since they usually have

no property of their own, and they cannot expect any protection or support from

members of their own family, they suffer in silence, or, as sometimes happens,

commit suicide. It must be mentioned, however, that in those patrilineal societies,

such as the Ga and• Dangme of Ghana, where the woman does. not become a

member of her husband's family, the bride-wealth given is not very substantial, and

the women in these societies have greater freedom when it comes to divorce.

In the matrilineal society, a woman never becomes a member of her

husband's family. She remains a member of her own family and so do the children

that she bears. This means that what her own family loses on her getting married

are her services on the farm, for example, but in the place of this, it is understood

by her family that the husband is going to help her have children who ensure the

continuity of her own lineage. This is a: greater advantage to her own family, so

what is given as bride-wealth is relatively small. As with marriage in a patrilineal

society, the bride-wealth has to be returned on divorce, and since it is usually not

substantial, this can be readily done, so that marriage in a matrilineal society is, on

the whole less stable than marriage in a patrilineal one, but it also means that a

woman in such a society is less likely to put up with ill-treatment from her

husband. This is because she continues to enjoy the protection of members of her

own family and may even continue to live in her family house after marriage. The

confidence that such a woman has is reflected in the Akan (Ghana) saying which

translates as "If you divorce me I will not eat stones".

Women from different parts of Africa generally agree that the bride-wealth

that is demanded by a woman's relations, or what the would-be husband feels he

should give as bride-wealth befitting his status and that of his would-be bride, is

often too exorbitant. Many of them would want to see some restriction on the total

value of the bride-wealth, whether in cattle, in gifts or in cash, for with the

introduction of a cash economy into African societies, parents, especially those in

urban centres, often ask for the cash equivalent of the bride-wealth, and this can be

very high indeed. However, many women do not want to see an end to the practice

because they feel that it is a source of disgrace for a woman to enter marriage

without some bride-wealth being given to her and her relations. She will be

ridiculed by the society as not being of much value in the eyes of her family. In the

long run, it is the man, who has been saved the expenditure, who will at a later date

turn round and insult her as having been given away for free by her relations

because they felt she was either a burden or not of much value to her family. It has

already been explained that the bride-wealth, especially in the cattle-rearing

patrilineal societies, is basically a compensation to the woman's family for the loss

of her services. If no bride-wealth is given it would be a denial of a woman's worth

to her husband in terms of the services she is expected to give, and the woman

could be held up for ridicule.

It would appear, therefore, that this is one tradition that will not be abolished

in the foreseeable future. Indeed, if there was legislation abolishing it, it would be

impossible to enforce it, especially in the rural areas where people have very strong

attachment to tradition. It may possible, however, to appeal to traditional rulers and

heads of religious bodies to use their influence to stipulate what the bride-wealth

should consist of, so that an upper limit can be set. In appealing to such leaders in

the society, the argument should not be that the bride-wealth system is a form of

slavery because the high value of some bride-wealth seems to imply that the

woman has been bought. Such an argument would be considered foreign to African

thinking and western-inspired. What is more likely to receive sympathetic hearing

is the argument that it is not healthy for a couple to start off married life with a

debt on their hands since very often people have to borrow money in order to

obtain the appropriate type of bride-wealth, or give the cash equivalent of what is

considered adequate and proper.

In Ghana, some congregations of the Presbyterian Church insist that if the

bride-wealth given is more than a certain value, the church would refuse to bless

the marriage. In order to ensure that this is enforced, an elder of the church is

usually present at the customary marriage ceremony. This is one way of ensuring

that the bride-wealth is kept within reasonable limits, and so far it seems to be

achieving its objective in spite of the protests that some families sometimes make

at these ceremonies. Chiefs and Traditional Councils in some parts of the country

have also stipulated what the bride-wealth should consist of, and efforts are made

to ensure that the rules are kept. It should be possible for women's organizations to

put pressure on the leaders of their communities, especially traditional rulers, to

work out a way of cutting down the cost of marriage so that ultimately it will

become clear to every man in the society that the paltry amount that he spends in

acquiring a wife cannot in any sense be construed to mean that he has 'bought' her.

Such a move will meet with a great deal of resistance, especially in some of the

cattle-rearing patrilineal societies where parents look to the marriage of their

daughters as a sure means of acquiring property. It would appear, therefore, that a

permanent solution to some of the family-related problems will have to be an

overall improvement in the living standards of people. This will reduce parents'

dependence on their children as their only insurance against poverty in their old

age.

Child Marriage

As has been explained in the. introduction to the discussion on marriage,

arranged marriages are a feature of traditional African societies, and it is within

this context that the following discussion on child marriage must be understood.

In some societies, an older man may indicate to the parents of a young girl

that either he himself would like to marry the girl when she becomes of age or he

would like to marry her for his son. This usually happens when there are very

cordial relations between the two families or when the man believes the girl's

family is known to have hard-working, well-behaved women.

If the girl's parents are agreeable, the man usually assumes financial

responsibility for her upkeep, giving her clothing and other gifts, and paying for

her education where applicable. In some cases, the young girl may be given to her

prospective mother-in-law to bring up, so that she would grow up knowing how

things are done in her future husband's family. This also ensures that she becomes

acquainted with her future in-laws long before she starts married life, and this

helps to eliminate the trauma that she would otherwise experience if she had to

leave her own parents' home at about age twelve or thirteen to start married life in

her husband's home.

After the young girl reaches the age of puberty, the man decides when she is

old enough to be taken to his house to start married life, and it is at such time that

the formal marriage procedures are gone into, although very often the expenditure

on her during childhood is taken into account in determining the. value of the

bride-wealth. If the girl is in school, she is invariably withdrawn from school when

the man decides she is ready for marriage, and so such girls very often do not

complete formal education. In many cases, this is a way of ensuring that the girl

does not become too sophisticated and have ideas about falling in love with

somebody else.

Although such arrangements may have worked in the past, it often happens

in modem times that a girl may refuse to marry the man she had been promised to

when she was a child. This creates problems for everybody. If the parents are

unable to persuade her into marrying the man, they have to refund to him all the

money that he had spent on her since he made the proposal of marriage. This is

often impossible for them to do, for if they were rich, they probably would not

have allowed the future husband to spend that much money on her in the first

place. In some societies, as in parts of northern Ghana, a girl may get out of this

difficult situation by 'eloping' with her lover, but the lover will have to refund to

the rejected man all the money that he had spent on her, which he may not be in a

position to do. Invariably, what happens is that the girl is forced to go and live with

her husband, sometimes with very unpleasant consequences, for she may be locked

up for some time, or otherwise coerced into agreeing to s y in the husband's home

and live as a married woman. Since such girls cannot expect any protection from

their parents, they either submit to their new way of life or, as sometimes happens

if they have the guts, they may run away to an urban centre where they can

hopefully get 'lost'. It is known that quite often such girls end up as prostitutes in

the urban centres for they very often have no skills that will get them a job, and

they usually avoid people they know, who can help them, for fear of being sent

back to their angry husbands or parents.

The experiences that these young brides - sometimes as young as twelve

years - often go through are quite traumatic. Because of their young age and

because their bodies are not sufficiently fully developed to cope with child -

bearing, they sometimes suffer permanent damage to their health at the birth of

their first child.

Most African countries have incorporated into their Constitutions the

provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Many have signed, and

some have even ratified the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All

Forms of Discrimination Against Women which, among other things, requires

member states to "ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women: the same right

freely to choose a spouse and to enter into marriage only with their free and full

consent." (Article 16, 1 (b).)

However, one is yet to see in any of these countries, a law banning child-

marriage. Those who support the practice say that it is the way society ensures the

moral uprightness of its women, who, as mothers of the next generation, must have

the highest moral standards so as to be able to impart the same to their children.

They must, therefore, be married off early to ensure that they do not become

wayward. But as has been pointed out, the same practice has forced some girls to

run away from home and end up as prostitutes. Some men also claim it is a source

of rejuvenation for adult men, although there is no medical evidence to support this

claim.

In the societies where the practice persists, it is usually the men who support

it, and unfortunately they are the law-makers and the traditional rulers, and they

cannot be expected to legislate against it. One possible way of dealing with the

problem is for there to be legislation stipulating a minimum age for marriage. But

perhaps a more effective way of eradicating the practice is for governments in the

various countries to pass and enforce a law making formal education compulsory

for all children, and stipulating a minimum number of years - at least 9 years -

during which children should stay in school. This would at least ensure that until

they complete compulsory formal education at about age 14 or 15, girls would not

be forced to go and start married life, even though they may have been promised in

marriage at an earlier age, for the practice of arranged marriages is one that will be

difficult to eliminate completely, since it will be impossible to enforce or monitor

its elimination.

Again, one comes back to the question of the economic prosperity of African

countries. In the absence of such economic prosperity, it will be impossible for any

government to provide free primary school education for all children, and without

such free education, no government can insist or ensure that parents send all their

children to school, and keep them there for the stipulated minimum period.

Polygamy

An Asante (Ghana) folktale that provides a rationale for polygamy goes like

this: A man who had been married for about two years decided to take on a second

wife. His wife thought there was no need for that since she felt they were getting

on perfectly happily. She already had one child, and was likely to have more. The

man argued that she alone could not provide for him all the things he needed at the

times he needed them; but the woman insisted he had no basis for that claim. To

prove his point, the man one day said he wanted to eat Asante kenkey, a

preparation from corn-dough, and the woman had that day to prepare it for him.

The woman accepted the challenge and started by beating the maize in a very deep

mortar to remove the skin from the maize, for the kenkey is made from polished

maize. After removing the skin, she pounded the maize in another mortar to break

it up. She then ground it on a big grinding stone to get a smooth paste, for this was

the age when there were no cornmills. By this time she was not only physical1y

exhausted, but both palms were in blisters, and she had difficulty mixing the com-

dough to the right consistency for making the kenkey. She eventually gave up,

went to the elders of her family and asked them to go and apologize to the man on

her behalf for being so stubborn, and to tell him that she was perfectly agreeable to

his marrying a second wife. And that, according to the story, is how men started

marrying more than one wife.

This story illustrates how society conditions its members into accepting the

norms of the society. A young girl in a village would hear this story told over and

over again, and by the time she is of age she would know that it is not possible for

one woman to satisfy the needs of her husband, and therefore she should be

prepared to share her husband with co-wives. It is for this reason that while the

more radical feminists would want to see legislation banning the traditional

practices that are seen to be demeaning to a woman's status in society, it is clear to

most African women fighting for women's emancipation that such legislation will

at best affect only a fraction of the educated women living in urban communities.

The rest of the population will continue to practise them until the inimical effects

of the particular traditional practice have been demonstrated to them in no

uncertain terms, or until, as suggested above in the case of child-marriage,

something new and seen to be beneficial, such as formal education, has been put in

its place.

In traditional African societies, men have usually married more than one

woman in order to have more hands to help them work on their farms. More wives

meant more children, and the larger a man's farm, the more wives and children he

had. Thus, over the years, the number of wives a man had was seen as a reflection

of his affluence. In recent years, formal education has meant a reduction in the

labour provided by children, and hired labour has also meant a reduction in the

value of the labour provided by wives, although they became useful supervisors of

the hired labour. In modern times, therefore, the usefulness of wives as free labour

has been considerably reduced, but the practice of polygamy still persists.

One of the main reasons for this state of affairs is that all African societies

believe that a woman must be married and marriage confers on a woman a high

degree of respectability in her community. And so whatever her level of education,

professional status or economic independence, an African woman would not

normally choose to remain single, although it is also true to say that higher

education and professional status do confer a very high degree of respectability on

a woman, irrespective of her marital status. One must add that marriage also

confers respectability on a man. An unmarried man is normally regarded as

irresponsible: he cannot even assume responsibility for a wife and children. A.

woman is also expected to have children to prove her womanhood, and it is true to

say that the respect and status that motherhood confers on a woman is greater than

that conferred by marriage per se. A young woman who has children outside

marriage is generally regarded as a disgrace to herself and to her family, and so to

have children, a woman must be married, and it does not matter how many wives

the man already has. For these reasons, one finds that some of the strongest

opponents to any legislation banning polygamy are women, even highly educated

women.

There are other reasons why many women find polygamy a convenient

arrangement. There are women who have been able to continue their education and

have professional training after marriage and the birth of one or two children

because as the third or fourth wife, they found willing and competent mothers for

their children in the senior co-wives. Understandably, this can only happen if the

junior wife gives them due respect, and there is harmony in the home.

The freedom of movement that a polygamous marriage makes possible for

women can also be seen in the activities of market women. In, especially, the non-

Moslem parts of West Africa, retail trade in agricultural produce and in

manufactured goods is dominated by women. They have full control over the

money they earn, and many of them have, without the help of husbands, brothers

or other male relation, been able to give their children education and professional

training. Many of these women are married in a polygamous system, and they find

it a very convenient arrangement, for a woman can travel for days buying goods

from one part of the country and transporting them to the market centres without

having to worry about a husband whose meals have to be ready at specific times.

There will be another wife to take care of that while she is away. Of course, it also

can happen that if the man is not too well organized, and has not made proper

arrangement s, he may go hungry because each wife expects one or the other co-

wife to be cooking for him. This situation is summed up in an Asante (Ghana)

proverb which translates as "It is hunger that killed the man with many wives", a

statement which implies that although traditional society approves of polygamy, it

also feels that a man can have a wife too many. Some educated women, especially

those of the Moslem faith, whose religion does not give any protection against

polygamy because it allows a man up to four wives, will tell you that they would

not mind being the second, third or fourth wife. Their reason is that they will have

time to concentrate on their profession when it is not their turn to keep house for

the husband. The cynics among them will add that while monogamy does not

guarantee a husband's fidelity, in a polygamous marriage, a woman at least has

some idea of where her husband is likely to be when he is not with her.

Some women who support polygamy have even argued that it is justified on

account of the ratio of women to men in their countries, although one is yet to find

an African country whose census figures show that women are around 65 per cent

of the population, which will be a basis for at least some of the men being entitled

to no more than two women each. The fact is that since most women do not have

any formal education, and since they do not need to undergo any formal vocational

training, having learnt whatever trade their mothers are engaged in from

observation and participation, there are, at any given time, more girls who are

ready for marriage than there are marriageable men. The young men of their age or

a little older will still be in school or will be struggling to acquire some property,

such as their own farm which will enable them to pay for the bride-wealth

required,' and also make them capable of maintaining a wife and children. Girls,

therefore, marry men who are often many years older than they are, and it is not

unusual to find a woman in traditional society addressing her husband as 'Master'

or by some other title that duly reflects his superior position. She never calls him

by his name.

For the present, most African women, especially the rural majority, believe

that polygamy as practised in African societies, is to be preferred to the situation

one finds in Western societies where, in the strict monogamous system, a man may

be married to one woman but keeps one or more mistresses. This is what is

happening in many 'monogamous' marriages among educated Africans. There is

also the modern trend of successive polygamy where a man in his life-time may be

married to several women, only he divorces one before he marries the next - a

system that creates problems for children born in each succeeding marriage. The

polygamous system in traditional African societies at least gives equal status to co-

wives, although usually the most senior commands respect and the newest wife is

the favoured one.

One should not, however, underrate the emotional strain that individual

women go through in polygamous marriages, especially in modern times. In the

past, a woman married for economic security, and she would put up with infidelity

and with other forms of cruelty on the part of her husband as long as he provided

for her and her children. Now that women are becoming economically

independent, they have other expectations in marriage, the major ones being

affection and companionship. This is particularly true of educated women. When

these expectations are not fulfilled because a husband is seriously involved in

extra-marital relations, some women decide to break off the marriage, especially if

they can, on their own, take full responsibility for the upbringing of their children.

This has led to the creation of the impression that education, especially higher

education, for women is responsible for the increase in divorce rate. Men and

women of the older generation, in particular, cannot appreciate the feeling of

betrayal that a woman, who has had a happy marriage with her husband and shared

confidences with him for many years, has when her husband decides to take on

another wife, or when he starts having children outside his officially monogamous

marriage. A woman who decides to divorce her husband because he has a serious

relationship with another woman is, therefore, considered to be over-reacting, and

she cannot normally expect much sympathy from either friends or relations,

especially if there are children in the marriage. She will be told that divorce is bad

for the children. Older women in her family will tell her about several instances in

which a woman had patiently tolerated her husband's infidelity, and then several

years later he had come back to her, having realized the uselessness of those other

relationships. In other words, if the woman waits long enough, she will have her

husband back, and the marriage will be as good as new. Of course, they never tell

of those cases where the women have stayed on and suffered in silence, ending up

growing old prematurely, losing their interest in life and, sometimes, even losing

their minds. They do not also tell of the rivalries that can and do develop between

brothers and sisters from different mothers, not to mention the rivalries between

co-wives and the effect they have on their children.

It is quite clear that African societies are, in general, not yet ready to

consider polygamy, or monogamy with extra- marital relations, as a major issue.

This is why educated African women working for women's emancipation do not

treat it as a priority, for they feel the time is not yet right for serious discussion on

the issue. Moreover, the effect on women, of polygamy and extra-marital relations

on the art·of husbands is still a very private issue, and when one considers the

obvious and demonstrable inimical effects that practices like child-marriage, bride-

wealth and circumcision have on women, it is difficult to accord poly- gamy the

same priority status among pressing issues that affect women in Africa.

In recent years, many men, especially those in the urban centres, have

become keenly conscious of the need to educate and provide a fairly high standard

of living for their children. This, coupled with the economic hardships that almost

all African countries are experiencing, have made many men come to the

realization that it is difficult enough for them to cope with a small family, and they

would not even contemplate acquiring a second wife who will insist on having her

quota of children, at least three or four, much less a third and a fourth.

It would appear, therefore, that the desire for a better standard of living for

one's family, and the economic constraints of modern life are the two major factors

that will eventually make men see the undesirability of marrying more than one

woman at a time. It may be mentioned here that the Christian religion, with its

insistence on monogamy, has helped to reduce the incidence of polygamy to some

extent. Moreover, some men, who grew up in polygamous homes and suffered

from the rivalries that existed between co-wives and between their children, no

longer consider marriage to more than one woman a worthwhile venture.

One practical way of reducing the incidence of polygamy is to encourage

professional and vocational training for girls, so that they marry at a later age when

it is possible for them to find husbands among their own age group. Such

professional training will also mean that a woman will be reasonably economically

independent, so that it would not be necessary for her to become a second or a third

wife to a man simply because he is well-to-do and therefore able to provide for her.

In other words, the need for economic security will no longer be a motive for a girl

to get into marriage, whether polygamous or not.

Purdah

"We Hausa women do not dirty our hands, we do not work in the fields."

This is what a Moslem Hausa woman in Kano northern Nigeria, told me.

Purdah is a tradition, apparently a Persian tradition that has found its way

into Islam, which requires that a woman, on marriage, should not be seen by any

man other than her husband. She, therefore, has to stay indoors during the day,

going out only in the evenings when she can sit outside and have a chat with her

friends or visit her relations. If she must go out during the day, her face must be

properly veiled from prying eyes. Normally, purdah is observed for a few weeks

after marriage, to give the new couple time to be together and to get to know each

other, since there usually is no period of courtship before marriage.

In some societies, however, if the man is rich, he can afford to keep his

wives in purdah for as long as he likes, sometimes until they are fairly old when,

presumably, they are no longer attractive to other men. In the very strict Moslem

society of Kano, some married women, like the one I met, stay in purdah for the

better part of their lives.

The Kano Hausa woman was the most senior of four wives. Each of them

had her own room in the husband's two-story house, and they took turns to cook

for the house- hold. At 35, her 22-year old daughter already had a 7-year old son.

The woman never had any formal education, but her daughter had eight years of

primary school before, at 14, she was married to a 28-year old engineer. At the

time I visited her home, it was the turn of the second wife to cook for the family,

and the other three women had very little to do. The youngest wife had had some

formal education and had grown up in an urban setting in the southern part of

Nigeria, where women have more freedom of movement, and it was obvious she

could not cope with having to stay indoors most of the day. We stopped at her door

for a brief chat, and I noticed, to my utter surprise and disbelief, and to the

embarrassment of the most senior wife, that she was smoking. Later, the first wife

remarked with obvious disapproval, "These girls from the south are impossible.

She smokes all day." I did not ask how the husband felt about her smoking.

To go back to the woman's earlier statement, I almost envied her the pride

with which she spoke about her not having to work. And who wouldn't want to be

a lady of leisure, not having to rush out to work in the morning with barely enough

time for a quick breakfast; not having to spend half of the working day putting up

with unreasonable customers, difficult school children or bad-tempered bosses; not

having to rush back home after work to fix dinner for a hungry husband, and at the

same time try to present a calm outside for children demanding the love and

attention of a mother they have missed for a whole day? Who wouldn't envy the

Kano Hausa woman who does not have to dirty her hands with work?

But then there was the youngest wife whose only escape from the boredom

of her existence was to chain-smoke. She was 18 when she was married off by·her

parents to her rich husband. The freedom she had enjoyed as a child growing up in

an urban setting in southern Nigeria had not prepared her for her new way of life,

and she was obviously living under a great deal of stress.

The practice of purdah is obviously another example of the inequality that

exists between men and women in some African Moslem societies. But more than

its being another instance of how society ensures male superiority, it is a clear

waste of human resources - a waste of woman-power as an essential part of the

manpower resources available to a country. It is from this point of view that any

attack on the system must be made, and any move for a change must be initiated by

members of the Moslem community, if it is to have any chance of success. Most

Moslem societies do not keep women in purdah for the best part of their lives, and

in such societies there is evidence of the value of working women's contribution to

improvement in the condition of life of their families, as well as to the

development of their countries. It should be possible to gather such evidence and to

use it to persuade Moslem leaders to steadily reduce the period of purdah until the

practice is ultimately abolished.

Widowhood

When a man dies it is because his wife is an unlucky woman whose ill-luck

has caused her husband's death. In some communities in Ghana, it is this belief that

underlies the treatment that a woman goes through at the death of her husband. In

these communities, there is a strong belief that such a woman is likely to bury a

second and a third husband, after which the fourth, if she can find one, will survive

her. She must, therefore purge herself of the ill-luck that is dogging her. The period

for such purging varies from one society to another, but what runs through must of

the widowhood rites is that the woman must be put through a certain amount of

discomfort. If she is not liked by her in-laws, the sisters-in-law in particular make

it their business to generally make life unpleasant for her, especially if they believe

their brother had been extremely good to her and, as a result had neglected them.

She is not normally supposed to sleep in a bed till after the fortieth day of the death

of her husband, and so she sleeps on a mat on the floor. During the first forty days,

the widow is confined to the house, usually that of the husband's fami1y, unless

special permission is given for her to continue with the widowhood rites in her

own house. She cannot engage in any economic activity for a considerable length

of time, and she may have to wait for six months or even a year before going about

her normal business, especially if she is self-employed.

On the first anniversary of the husband's death, the widow discards her

mourning clothes and starts normal life again. In some communities, there is an

end-of-widowhood ceremony at this time, involving the slaughtering of a sheep

and feasting. A widow in such a community cannot discard her mourning clothes

until she has performed this ceremony. If she cannot afford a sheep, drinks and the

other things needed for the ceremony on the anniversary of her husband's death,

she continues in mourning clothes until she is able to do so.

The practice of widowhood rites is again one of the traditional, practices that

clearly shows the inequality between the sexes. A man is never responsible for his

wife's death unless there is very clear evidence that she died as a result of physical

violence on her by the husband. Even in such a situation, the woman may be

blamed for being difficult and insubordinate, thus forcing the husband to be violent

towards her. A widower must also undergo certain rites to rid himself of the ill-

luck and the contamination that death is generally considered to bring. But these

are done with the minimum of discomfort, the worst being confinement to the

house for about a week or two.

In Ghana, after considerable debate, a law was eventually passed banning

widowhood rites. However, women who had been pressing for such a law realized,

to their dismay, that strong is the belief that a widow may be haunted by the ghost

of her husband if she does not perform these rites, that there are widows who are

still willing to go through with them, in spite of the law. Some widows also feel

that if they refuse to perform these rites, it will be an insult to the memory of the

husband who, in his lifetime, had been so good to them. Of course, the law ensures

that widows who do not to perform these rites are protected. But what is

abundantly clear is that while such progressive laws reflect the society's desire to

break away from undesirable aspects of its culture, they are only effective to the

extent that the wider society is prepared to conform to the provisions contained in

them. In the case of the widowhood rites, enforcement of the law banning them

depends primarily on the willingness of the women whom the law seeks to protect

to be so protected. This means that while laws aimed at the eradication of certain

traditional practices may be desirable and necessary, what is more important is a

systematic programme of education to make the society as a whole, and the women

in particular, appreciate the need for a change in attitude to those traditional

practices.

While on widowhood, one may mention the practice in many African

societies where the successor to the dead man may inherit his widow(s) as well. In

some of these societies, the widow has the right to choose a husband from among

the dead husband's brothers. The widow may also refuse to re-marry into her

husband's family, although in such a situation, her family, in most cases, will have

to return the bride-wealth that was given at her marriage. Returning the bride-

wealth indicates that the marriage between her family and her dead husband's is

broken, and that she is free to re-marry.

A typical feminist reaction to a widow being married by the dead husband's

relation is that it makes a woman part of a man's estate that may be disposed of or

inherited at his death. However, given the fact that the women in many of these

societies have no independent source of livelihood, such re-marriage into the

husband's family guarantees that she and her children will be taken care of. The

only way to put an end to such a practice is, as suggested under polygamy, to give

women skills that will make them economically independent, so that marriage will

not be the only avenue open to them in their search for economic security.

Inheritance of Property

It has already been pointed out that most marriages in Africa are

polygamous, which means that a man's property has to be shared among his many

widows and children on his death. If a man dies intestate, that is, without leaving a

will indicating how the property must be shared, this creates a problem because of

the variety of claims that the different wives and children may have on specific it

ems of the property. Moslem law stipulates how a man's property may be shared

after his death and therefore the problem, to some extent, is not very great where

the marriage is a Moslem one. The same is true, to some extent, of Ordinance and

Christian marriage There is a major problem, however, when a man dies intestate

in a polygamous Customary law marriage. Even in an officially monogamous

Christian or Ordinance marriage, the common practice of men having children

outside their monogamous marriage creates problems over the sharing of property

when the man dies intestate.

It has also been stated that African societies are either matrilineal, where

lineage is traced through the mother, or patrilineal, where lineage is traced through

the father. In a matrilineal society, children do not have an automatic right to their

father's property, but they can inherit the property of their maternal uncle. A

situation, therefore, arises where a woman and her children may be thrown out of

the matrimonial home on the death of her husband, and the house inherited by the

husband's nephews, that is, his sister's children. The problem is further

compounded when a woman from a patrilineal society marries a man from a

matrilineal society, for, while her children cannot inherit their father's property,

because he comes from a matrilineal society, where it is his sister's children who

have a right to his property, they cannot inherit their maternal uncle's property

either, because their mother comes from a patrilineal society.

The point has also been made that in a society where most people do not

have social security benefits, parents look to their children as their main insurance

against poverty in their old age. When, therefore, a man is survived by a parent, the

wife or wives and their children have to contend with the interest that the parent

also has in the property.

All these factors have been a source of strain and worry for women, for in

general, most people, both men and women, do not make wills until they are very

old. The general feeling is that one makes a will when one is near death, certainly

not at forty or fifty, when death seems so far away. Many men, therefore, die

intestate, even highly educated men, and their deaths are often followed by

interminable law suits to determine who is entitled to what.

In Ghana, the inheritance of property was identified as one of the major

causes of instability in marriage, for wives have no interest in their husband's

property whether the society is matrilineal or patrilineal. Many women would,

therefore, not embark on joint ventures with their husbands for fear of losing

everything, especially if the husband comes from a matrilineal society. She may

also have to share the property either with co-wives or, if hers is a monogamous

marriage, with children the wife may not have been aware of, who usually surface

when the man dies. Many women who have the money will build a house of their

own rather than help their husband build. They are also careful to let everyone,

especially their in-laws, know the particular items of furniture or major household

equipment that they had bought for the house so that no one is in doubt as to who

owns what.

For years, a law on Intestate Succession was on the agenda of the Ghana

Law Reform Commission. The law was discussed over and over again by all

sectors of the society, and women's organizations, in particular, sent their

comments and recommendations on the proposed law.

People from matrilineal societies, who are in the majority in the country,

opposed the law because they felt that any law that made provision for children to

inherit their father's property would be an imposition of the patrilineal system on

the matrilineal one. This, they argued, would ultimately undermine the cultural

basis of the matrilineal society. In Ghana, as stated earlier, wives traditionally have

no interest in their husband's property in either the patrilineal or the matrilineal

society. If a husband, in his lifetime, felt that his wife had been good to him, he

made a formal gift of a house or a farm or some such valuable property to her, for

which her family would formally thank him. Such property would remain hers

after the death of her husband.

In 1985, as a major contribution to the efforts initiated during the UN

Decade for Women to improve the lot of women in Ghana, the Ghana Government

passed the Law on Intestate Succession, which makes provision for surviving

spouse(s) and all the children that a man claimed to be his during his lifetime, to

inherit the greater proportion of his self-acquired property. The law also makes

some provision for surviving parent(s). Only a very small percentage of the

property goes to the extended family. It must be pointed out that the law makes

specific provision for the surviving spouse, so that a wife is provided for whether

or not she had children in the marriage.

This is one area in which legislation has made a dramatic impact on a

traditional practice that was oppressive to women. Now, a widow in Ghana does

not have to worry about being ejected from her matrimonial home on the death of

her husband. Hopefully, this provision will help foster stability in marriage, as

wel1 as mutual co-operation between husband and wife, at least within

monogamous marriages.

The application of the Law on Intestate Succession to polygamous marriages

is a little more complicated, not so much because a11 wives and their children have

an equal interest in the man's property, but because the law gives equal rights to

men and women in the inheritance of property. In other words, it makes it possible

for the surviving spouse, a husband or a wife, to inherit the self-acquired property

of the deceased. This means that a woman in a polygamous marriage, who wants to

ensure that only her children and not her husband and his wives as well, inherit her

property, has to make a will to say so. A certain amount of education is going on to

bring this home to women, especially the rich market women in the urban centres,

many of whom have a lot of property.

In a number of African countries, the inheritance of property, where a man

dies intestate, is done according to the type of marriage contracted. This means that

it is done according to the Customary law of the particular society, if it was a

Customary law marriage; according to Moslem law if it was a Moslem marriage;

and according to Ordinance law if it was an Ordinance law or a Christian marriage

The absence of a uniform law on intestate succession in these countries means that

many women, especially those married under Customary law, are at the mercy of

their in-laws on the death of their husbands This should not be so, and something

has to be done to relieve a widow of the anxiety and the feeling of insecurity that

aggravates the deep sense of loss that she must feel at the death of her husband.

As has been pointed out, this is one area in which legislation can, in a very

short time, make an impact on t e plight of women. Women's organizations should

work in close collaboration with women lawyers in their countries to bring

pressure on their governments in order to ensure that there is legislation that gives

equal rights to men and women in the inheritance of property. Such legislation will

ensure that widows in the society can have a fair share of the property that they

helped their husbands to acquire, irrespective of the type of marriage they

contracted. In Ghana, the women lawyers association (FIDA, Ghana Chapter) has

instituted legal aid to assist women who cannot afford the services of lawyers,

including widows whose in-laws may try to deprive them and their children of

their entitlements under the Intestate Succession Law.

High Fertility

Children are of special value to both men and women in African societies. It

has been pointed out that the respect and status that motherhood confers on a

woman is greater than that conferred by marriage per se. For this reason, and also

in order to fulfil a personal desire for motherhood, sometimes even educated

professional women, some of them brought up in strict Christian homes, will rather

have children outside wedlock than remain childless. The point has also been made

that a woman needs to have children to ensure the continuity of her own lineage in

a matrilineal society, or that of her husband, in a patrilineal society. The more

children she has, the better. There is often considerable pressure on a young

woman to get married and start a family. Such pressure does not only come from

mothers who are anxious to see their grandchildren in their lifetime, but also from

well-meaning friends and relations who feel that delaying child-bearing for too

long may result in childlessness. One may add that the love of children, not

necessarily one's own, is a greatly admired virtue in women, and a childless

woman, whether married or single, is greatly admired and respected if she can

nurture a mother/child relationship between herself and the nephews and nieces,

and even the stepchildren that she brings up. The more such children she has the

greater the respect accorded her by society. It is, therefore, considered unnatural in

traditional society for a healthy woman, especially a healthy married woman in her

late twenties or early thirties, who is capable of having children, to willfully choose

to limit the size of her family.

A man must also have children to ensure that the names of his forebears

survive into the future, for it is the man who names a child. In order that his own

name does not disappear, he must have sons who will name their children after

him, and the more sons he has the better. If his wife gives birth to girls only, she

will have to continue having more children until a son is born. More often than not,

a man will either marry other women who, hopefully, will bear him sons, or if he is

married according to Ordinance law or Christian marriage, he may try to have a

son outside his marriage. A woman may even be divorced for the simple reason

that she has not been able to bear sons for her husband; so high is the premium

placed on sons by men, who want to ensure that their names do not disappear. Very

often, an educated couple who may have planned to have three children will end up

with five, or six in their desire to have children of both sexes, for while sons are

needed to ensure the survival of family names, daughters, who ensure the

continuity of the lineage, are of special value in a matrilineal society. It must be

pointed out that adoption is as yet not a very acceptable alternative to having one's

own children.

The point has also been made that children are the only insurance that

parents have against poverty in their old age, so the more children they have, the

more likely they are to be taken good care· of when they are no longer able to

work. The high level of infant mortality, especially in rural communities, as a

result of poor sanitation, poor nutrition, the prevalence of communicable diseases

and the inadequacy of medical services, has meant that couples must have many

children in order to ensure that some survive into adulthood. Mention must also be

made of the high toll that sickle cell anaemia, a hereditary disease common among

the black race, takes on the lives of children in Africa.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s when the world was suddenly awakened to

the threat of a population explosion, Third World countries in particular became

the target for internationally-funded programmes on family planning and

population control. In Ghana, family-planning posters depicted the ideal happy

family as one with three children. There were slogans on the radio encouraging

people to have fewer children so that the government could provide enough

schools for their education, and employment for school- leavers. The

ineffectiveness of these slogans must have soon become clear, for they were taken

off the air. People usually have the number of children they believe they can look

after. Whether the government can or cannot provide for those children in later life

is not a matter of immediate concern.

In another African country, the family-planning poster depicting the ideal

family, was one with a smiling well-dressed couple and two happy children, a boy

and a girl. In contrast to this was the picture of a couple with eight children, all of

them in tattered clothes and looking miserable. The posters had a negative effect.

Ordinary people thought of the couple with only two children as selfish, for they

should have had more children to spread their wealth, and the happiness to be

derived from it, to a few more children The large family, though looking poor,

evoked a more sympathetic reaction. People believe that it is always possible for

one or two of many children to make it in the world and take care of the rest.

It should be obvious that for new or non-traditional ideas such as limiting

family size to be accepted, especially by rural communities, and for new

programmes at improving the quality of life of a people to be successful, it is

essential that the cultural values of the particular society are taken into

consideration in devising ways of putting the new ideas across. The shift in

emphasis in family-planning programmes from family size to the spacing of births

to protect the health of the mother and that of her child, is having a better impact,

for the idea is not alien to African societies. Polygamy and, in some societies

taboos forbidding sex with a lactating mother, have been ways in which this has

been ensured in traditional society. What is now needed in order to reduce high

fertility among African women is for girls to marry at a much older age than they

do at the moment, so as to reduce the child -bearing period. The only way this can

be achieved is for girls to complete formal education and have vocational or

professional training before marriage. Formal education for girls is in itself an

effective tool for limiting family size, for it is quite clear that because educated

women want to give their children a much higher standard of living than they

themselves had as children, and also give them the best education available, they

tend to have fewer children. Sex and family life education for especially, teenage

boys and girls is also needed to reduce the incidence of precocious pregnancies

among school girls, and to ensure that the girls complete their formal education. In

addition, women need to be assured that the few children that they bring into the

world will survive into adulthood, by the provision of basic amenities such as good

drinking water, immunization and medical services within easy reach. In the

absence of these, family-planning programmes will continue to have very little or

no impact on the large rural population. When everybody in a village has been

witness to a woman losing three children to measles within two months, it will be

difficult, if not impossible, to persuade any young woman in that village not to

have more than three children. Advocating for two children only is certainly out of

the question in such a situation. If much of the funding that goes into the provision

of contraceptive devices were spent on the provision of good drinking water,

facilities for immunization, and a general improvement in the living conditions of

rural communities, much better results would be achieved. The harsh economic

environment in which many people live in Africa today and the desire of most

parents to give their children some basic education, are important factors that have,

in recent years, affected family size.

Another important factor is an improvement in the status of women. It is

known that very often, a woman who is bogged down with frequent child-bearing,

and even when this is aggravated by poverty, will continue to have more children

because her husband wants her to. Some women in desperation have, on their own,

gone to family-planning clinics without their husbands' consent. When this is

discovered it usually creates such tension in the home that the woman invariably

gives up using the-birth control device that she had been given at the clinic. Such

women usually have no independent source of income, and have very little or no

say in the home, whether it has to do with the children's upbringing or with how

many children she must have. Married women who are economically independent,

and who can, therefore, contribute substantially to the family income, usually have

a greater say in matters affecting the family, and they can, and indeed do have a

say in how many children they want to have. The women in development

programmes, such as those discussed in Chapter 2, have had the effect of

improving women's income-earning capacity, and this has given them greater self-

confidence as well as the respect of members of their community, and husbands

have had to take note of what the women have to say about the number of children

they want to have, for they contribute financially to the raising of those children. It

would appear, therefore, that in addition to formal education, another effective way

of reducing high fertility among African women is an improvement in their

income- earning capacity. The promotion of income-generating projects for rural

women in particular, should therefore be a priority in the national programmes on

population control.

Finally, an improvement in the status of women will ultimately lower the

incidence of polygamy, which, because of competition in child-bearing among co-

wives, is a significant factor in the high fertility levels among African women.

Female Circumcision

An educated Kenyan woman from a society that practises female

circumcision had this to say about her own experience: Her parents were both

educated, and had decided that she would not be circumcised. When her friends in

a girls' boarding school, where she had her secondary education, found out about

this, she became an object of ridicule. On occasion, when they were all happily

having a girlish chat, somebody would interrupt the conversation and say that she

had not attained adulthood yet, and did not qualify to be sharing their jokes. These

occasions caused her a lot of pain and humiliation, but she managed to survive

them. After formal education and professional training, she got married under

Ordinance law, and had three children - two boys and a girl. The husband came

from the same part of the country, and they had a happy married life until the

husband started an affair with another woman, and decided to divorce her and

marry the other woman. The husband had the full backing of his relations when

they learnt that she was not circumcised, for that meant she was unclean, and they

would not have their son, brother, etc. continue living with an unclean woman. So

the marriage was dissolved. But the worst was yet to come. Theirs is a patrilineal

society where children belong to their father's family whether the couple are

divorced or not. The man and his relations decided that the children were also

unclean because their mother was not circumcised, and they would have nothing to

do with unclean children. This woman was financially capable of looking after the

children, but the thought that she was responsible for the children being rejected by

their father left her with an intense feeling of guilt. When asked if she would have

her daughter circumcised, she said she was not sure. Her better judgment told her

she should not. But, when she remembered what she had gone through in boarding

school and in her marriage, she sometimes wondered whether it would be wise and

fair for her to put her daughter through the same misery, considering that her

society still believes strongly in female circumcision, and has no sympathy for a

woman who does not conform.

The example of this Kenyan woman is given here because it is often

difficult, even impossible for those who do not belong to a given culture, to fully

appreciate the implications as well as the significance of aspects of that culture,

and understand why even enlightened members of that society choose to conform

against their better judgment.

Female circumcision is an issue that arouses very strong feelings in many

women. Some Western feminists decry it because they feel that the principal

objective of female circumcision, be it clitoridectomy, excision or infublation, is to

suppress a woman's sexuality and make her docile and faithful to her husband - a

clear example of how society ensures the subordination of women to men. Others,

including African women from societies in which the practice does not exist, get

horrified at the details of how the operation is performed. There is the risk of death

from excessive bleeding or from tetanus or some other infection as a result of the

operation, as well as the risk to a woman's health during childbirth on account of

the scar that results from the operation Some of the women who have been through

the operation speak of how traumatic the whole experience was for them, and how

they would not want to inflict such pain and emotional distress on their daughters.

On the other hand, others are often irritated or even upset by the fuss that is made

about it because they consider it a commonplace experience that women in their

societies go through, just like circumcision in men.

In the societies that practise female circumcision, there are stories and

beliefs that provide the rationale behind the practice. A little girl growing up in a

village or in a suburb of an urban centre is bound to hear about these so many

times that by the time she is of age she knows that the operation is for her own

good, and that this is what she has to do to be accepted as a woman in her society,

for the operation is usually meant to transform a girl into a woman.

Most African societies have procedures - initiation rites, puberty rites - that

are meant to usher young boys and girls into adulthood. It is during such rites that

young boys and girls are schooled by their elders. on their rights and

responsibilities as full citizens of their community, as well as their different roles

as men and women in the home and in the society. These rites confer full social

acceptability on the initiates, and, in traditional society, parents will ensure that

their children participate in such initiation rites for fear of their being ostracised.

Female circumcision, like male circumcision in some parts of Africa, is one such

procedure.

It is obviously a very painful and dangerous procedure. Those who do not

survive it have been bewitched or are accused of either being witches themselves,

or of not being virgins at the time of the operation - a necessary prerequisite for a

successful operation in some societies. For those who survive it, a happy

celebration consisting in feasting and merry-making is assured, and they are

showered with gifts, including expensive jewellry, by friends, relations and well-

wishers. This is something for a girl to look for- ward to, and so the practice

persists. An educated Gambian mother who refused to have her daughter

circumcised found to her shock that her mother, concerned that her grand- daughter

would be a social outcast, took advantage of the girl's visit to her during her school

holidays to have the operation performed on her, and what was worse, the girl

came back with a sense of achievement.

There is no doubt that female circumcision is a grave health hazard to

women, and every effort should be made to put an end to it. A law banning it will

only help to push it underground and make it more difficult for those suffering

from its effects to seek proper medical attention in the hospitals. Perhaps, like male

circumcision, female circumcision should be seen as a necessary evil, particularly

in those societies where it is a deeply rooted tradition, and regulations made to

make it possible for it to be performed under proper medical conditions in

hospitals. It should also be possible to provide training, like that given to

traditional birth attendants, to those women who perform the operation so as to

reduce the health risk to the young girls.

Once the practice has been brought into the open, it should. be possible to

encourage a milder form of the operation so as to reduce the extent of scarring and

other complications that pose problems for the woman in later life. For example, it

is known that among the Mende of Sierra Leone, blood-letting is an important

aspect of the operation. This aspect, which, for them has religious significance, can

be preserved by a symbolic incision, without the need for total clitoridectomy.

Such a procedure, which is aimed at preserving some significant aspect of the

practice in the relevant society, is more likely to receive sympathetic consideration

by those societies than an outright condemnation of the practice. Some Mende

women do indeed opt for this symbolic operation. What is even more important is

that any efforts at modification or eradication of the practice will have to come

from women who are themselves members of these societies. Well-intentioned

outsiders are likely to be looked at with suspicion, and accused of trying to

undermine or destroy the culture of the society.

Efforts at modifying the operation should go hand in hand with education, of

both young and old, on the risks that the operation poses for a girl both at the time

of the operation d in later life. At the same time, every effort should be made to

find other procedures for marking a girl's passage into adulthood, like those found

in societies that do not practise female circumcision. For those girls who go

through formal education, perhaps a big celebration at a convenient point in their

education, preferably on completing school, so that they do not miss out on the

merry-making and the gifts that are showered on them during this period. It should

be possible for those in Christian communities to use the confirmation ceremony as

the time for passing into adulthood both in the church and in the society, as is done

in parts of Ghana. For non-Christians and for those who do not go through formal

education, it should be possible to select an appropriate time after they have

reached the age of puberty for a full-blown celebration. They may be kept in

confinement for a few days during which grown-up women tell them all about

womanhood, and inculcate in them the societal values of courage, endurance,

fidelity, devotion to one's husband and so on, which are traditionally an essential

part of initiation rites. At the end of the period, the girls can be brought out into the

open with all the fanfare and festivities that are associated with passage into

adulthood.

In order to ensure that such proposals for a viable alternative to female

circumcision as an initiation rite are accepted, it would be necessary to have

sustained discussion with, and education of traditional rulers and heads of village

communities as well as of women's groups, to make them see the need for a

change. They should also be encouraged to make suggestions as to the form the

new initiation or puberty rites should take. Such a major exercise should not be the

responsibility of a few concerned women's societies, but should be undertaken by

both governmental and non-governmental agencies.

In a study done in Sierra Leone, "The Circumcision of Women a Strategy for

Eradication", Dr. Olayinka KosoThomas notes that the literate respondents in her

sample wanted the practice discontinued because of their awareness of the health

hazard it poses for both mother and child at the time of delivery. On the other

hand, the non-literate respondents, both male and female, wanted the practice to

continue because they felt its eradication would de troy a fundamental aspect of

their culture. For them, this operation is important and necessary because it is what

makes a woman accepted as a full adult member of her society, enjoying the rights

and privileges that such status confers. It is clear, therefore that formal education is

a vital weapon in the fight against the practice, for it makes it easier for people to

appreciate the health hazards that the operation poses for a woman. Moreover,

education helps to expose the fallacies in the justification for it, such as the belief

that it enhances fertility, or that it prevents still-births. This means that every effort

should be made to increase the enrolment of girls in school. As has been suggested

elsewhere, it is crucial that basic formal education be made available and

accessible to both boys and girls in all countries if any headway is to be made in

eradicating, or even modifying the traditional practices that continue to keep

women in subordination in Africa.

To go back briefly to the reference made in the Introduction to the division

of opinion on this subject at the Copenhagen Forum discussions, it can be seen that

for the moment African women's concern about female circumcision has very little

to do with the question of male superiority or the inequality of the sexes. However,

although that concern has everything to do with its being a health hazard that needs

to be eliminated, due cognizance is also taken of the cultural significance that the

practice has for the relevant societies. African women, therefore, see the need, not

only to fight against the practice on health grounds, but also to try and find a viable

and acceptable alternative for it as an important and significant cultural event in the

life of a young woman.