The Status of Women Among the Nilotics and Nilo-Hamitics

Extract

Many uncritical generalizations have been made on this subject, both by those who believe that in African cultures women hold a position of complete inferiority, and also by those who incline to the view that, while the status of women is different from that of men, it is by no means different to the extent of being inferior. It is easy for the observer to generalize for the particular tribe with which he is familiar. Superficially he sees women engaged on certain occupations and comporting themselves in such a way as to create a definite impression in the observer's mind: but this is not enough. Even if that impression is correct, it is valid only for that one tribe. But it is quite as likely to prove incorrect on analysis, as such a general appraisement must of necessity be subjective and be coloured by the cultural predilections of the observer. The barbarities associated with clitoridectomy, for instance, are frequently urged in proof of woman's low status, and even such trivial facts as the customary precedence given to a man by his wife when walking along a path are taken to be symptoms of the same social inferiority. As well might it be urged that among those tribes in which a woman is accustomed to precede a man she occupies a correspondingly exalted position: whereas the truth is that customs such as these have no bearing on status at all, but are incidents in major aspects of social and economic life and are determined by them. A woman may thus follow her husband in one tribe, because it is the latter's duty to defend her and he has to lead the way in case of an enemy's attack, while in another tribe, where danger is not so omnipresent, the man will possibly bring up the rear because he has less faith in the integrity of his women and likes to see what they are about. In the same way the observer might be tempted to assume that, because a woman is seen to be exercising high religious or magical prerogatives, therefore the general status of women in the community is equally high: but that might be just as fallacious a way of looking at it, since the exercise of particular prerogatives by specific women is no index to general status.