Female Husbands and the House-property Complex
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20148605 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Hidetoshi Katakami (Tokyo Metropolitan University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1998 |
| Volume | 1998 |
| Issue | 52 |
| Pages | 51-66 |
| Publication date | 1998-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of African Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0065-4140 • E-ISSN: 1884-5533 |
| Publisher | Japan Association for African Studies (PUBLISHER • JP) |
| DOI | 10.11619/africa1964.1998.51 |
| OpenAlex | W2320561398 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 4 |
Ethnographic literature on woman-marriage in patrilineal societies in eastern and southern Africa shows a lot of confusion about ethnographers' assessments of this type of marriage due to the misuse of analytical terms. This paper aims to examine the validity of two guiding concepts in the writings of woman-marriage: female husbands and the house-property complex.The term female husband refers to a woman who takes on the legal and social roles of husband and father by marrying another woman in accordance with the approved rules and ceremonies of her society. There are two major types of female husband. A surrogate female husband is a woman who acts as a substitute for a male kinsman in order to provide offspring for the latter's agnatic lineage. An autonomous female husband is one who marries independently, without any reference to male kin, and who is always a pater to children born by her wife or wives.The house-property complex is a system of property holding and inheritance in which all property held by a polygynous family in patrilineal societies is divided and held separately by the nuclear family, or ‘house’, of each wife. This institution is thought of as an important factor in practices of woman-marriage. Its distribution is from the southern Sudan through East Africa to the east of Victoria Nyanza and into the eastern part of southern Africa.Problem arises if an ethnographer encounters a practice of woman-marriage in a society in which the house-property complex exists. Because both concepts which are built on different principles conflict each other in such a situation. I suggest three criterions for deciding which concept is more efficient explanation of woman-marriage in question, namely a source of bridewealth, the legitimacy of a child, and the appropriateness of the application of the term female husband.A case study of woman-marriage among the Mbeere, one of the Northeastern Bantu-speaking peoples, is more cogently analyzed in terms of the house-property complex rather than the idea of female husbands in the light of those criterions. (i) There is a principle of internal segmentation of a polygynous family, in which each wife attaches much importance to keeping a single ‘house’. (ii) After woman-marriage, a sonless married woman stands as mother-in-law for the young woman, and as a grandmother for the latter's child, which is clearly manifested in the modes of address and naming of a child
Ethnography · Extended family · Genealogy · Geography · Inheritance (genetic algorithm) · Institution · Kinship · Political science · Polygyny · Population · Property (philosophy) · Social science · Sociology · Wife · African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues · Anthropology · Demography · Gender Studies · History · HIV, TB, and STIs Epidemiology · Land Rights and Reforms · Law
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |