Widow's Practice of Pro-husband Choice in a Rural Luo Community

In the Luo community, a widow must have a ter-relationship with her pro-husband after her husband has died. This relationship is constructed under marital union between the widow and her dead husband, because Luo do not regard the union as broken even after the husband dies.According to a large number of past studies on the structure and function of ‘primitive societies’, the aim of this kind of practice is that the wife continues to bear children, who are counted as the children of the dead man, whoever may beget them. That approach was to analyze the mechanism of the practice in their social system. There is general conscious ness that the aim of this practice (‘levirate’ or ‘widow inheritance’ is the previous anthropological term) is to create continuity and to uphold the decease person's name, and hence his line, a critically important social practice among the Luo community.The focus of this paper is an attempt to understand the widow's life after her husband's death. I investigated the widows' various facetted conditions through observing both their social and sexual situation. After investigating it appeared that there were various social conditions driving the ter-relationship practice.Some of those social conditions are: the pressure put on the widow by relatives of the deceased husband and her natal clan to find a pro-husband. Second, a widow may be seen as a prostitute if she does not accept a ter-relationship because of the Luo customary norm connecting sexual rules and ethics etc. Third, the customary patriarchal Luo law of property says that there is no place where a widow can stay except her husband's land. Lastly, other pressures mounted on the widow by the jater who jealous of the widow's family, and her own son who does not want any problem concerning the jater brought to his home.In conclusion, it is clear that widows have the freedom to choose and dismiss their pro-husband and this make this practice positive. The pro-husband can be a family member of the deceased husband's family, a neighbour, or someone from another community. It seems that because of the widow's freedom to choose and dismiss, widows are more free than they would have been with their real husbands, who in most cases watch their wife's activities at all times

Clan · Inheritance (genetic algorithm) · Norm (philosophy) · Political science · Sociology · Wife · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting Issues · Gender Studies · Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology

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