Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-03T19:55:32.320Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Inheritance and Women's Labour in Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2012

Jack Goody  and
Joan Buckley
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Africa is notable for the extent to which women participate in cultivation. An examination of the contribution of men and women by means of ‘The Ethnographic Atlas (Ethnology, 1967) shows that women play the major part in cultivation in 45 per cent of societies in Africa as a whole, and in 53 per cent of sub-Saharan societies. We are concerned here with the contribution women make to cultivation (in pastoral as well as purely farming economies) and not to its over-all control, which is largely in the hands of men.

Résumé

HÉRITAGE ET TRAVAIL DES FEMMES EN AFRIQUE

En Afrique, les femmes jouent souvent un rôle important dans les activités agricoles. L'exploitation par les femmes prédomine au Congo, en Afrique centrale, orientale, et en Afrique du Sud, alors que l'importance des femmes dans l'agriculture décline en Afrique du Nord et de l'Ouest. L'exploitation agricole par des femmes est fortement liée à deux types de succession, d'abord aux systèmes matrilinéaires, ensuite à la forme de succession verticale que Gluckman a nommée ‘house-property’. On la trouve dans les sociétés patrilinéaires et parfois les sociétés bilatérales. Le système ‘house-property’ divise la propriété des hommes entre les enfants selon leur origine maternelle. Dans les économies d'agriculture, un tel système attribue fréquemment aux fils d'une femme la terre qu'elle a eue en fermage, mais qu'elle ne peut ni posséder ni transmettre. Le système ‘house-property’ se rencontre dans les grandes zones d'elevage d'Afrique; les hommes s'occupent des troupeaux et les femmes de l'exploitation agricole. II peut en être de même dans les societés purement pastorales où les femmes jouent un rôle en soignant ou en trayant le bétail. Le système ‘house-property’ fournit par conséquent une sorte de reconnaissance sociale du rôle important de la femme dans le processus de production, bien qu'elle soit elle-même exclue de la pos-session des moyens de production.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , April 1973 , pp. 108 - 121
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1973

References

REFERENCES

Aberle, D. 1961. ‘Matrilineal descent in cross-cultural perspective’, in Matrilimal Kinship (eds.) Schneider, D. M. and Gough, K. San Francisco. Barnes, J. A. 1971. Three Styles in the Study of Kinship. London.Google Scholar
Boserup, E. 1970. Woman's Role in Economic Development. London.Google Scholar
Brown, J. K. 1970. ‘A note on the division of labour by sex’, American Anthropologist, 72, 1073–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans-Pritchard, E. E., 1940. The Nuer. Oxford. 1951. Kinship and Marriage among the Nuer. Oxford.Google Scholar
Firth, R. 1936. We, the Tikopia. London.Google Scholar
Fortes, M. 1949. The Web of Kinship among the Tallensi. London.Google Scholar
Gluckman, M. 1950. ‘Kinship and marriage among the Lozi of Northern Rhodesia and the Zulu of Natal’, in African Systems of Kinship and Marriage (eds.) Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. and Forde, D.London.Google Scholar
Gluckman, M. 1971. ‘Marriage payments and social structure among the Lozi and the Zulu (postscript 1971)’, in Kinship: Selected Readings (ed.) Goody, J.London.Google Scholar
Goody, J. 1956. The Social Organisation of the LoWiili. London.Google Scholar
Goody, J. 1969. ‘Inheritance, property and marriage in Africa and Eurasia’, Sociology, 3, 55–76.Google Scholar
Goody, J. 1970. ‘Sideways or downwards? Lateral and vertical succession, inheritance and descent in Africa and Eurasia’, Man, 5, 627–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gulliver, P. H. 1955. The Family Herds. London.Google Scholar
Hunter, M. 1936. Reaction to Conquest. London.Google Scholar
Lestrange, M. de. 1955. Les Coniagui et les Bassari. Paris.Google Scholar
Lewis, I. M. 1962. Marriage and the Family in Northern Somaliland. (East African Studies No. 15). Kampala.Google Scholar
Mitchell, J. C. 1950. ‘Preliminary notes on land tenure and agriculture among the Machinga Yao’, Human Problems in British Central Africa, 10, 1–13.Google Scholar
Murdock, G. P. 1967. ‘The ethnographic atlas: a summary’, Ethnology, 4, 109–236.Google Scholar
Murdock, G. P. 1968. ‘The current status of the world's hunting and gathering peoples’, in Man the Hunter (eds.) Lee, R. B. and DeVore, I.Chicago.Google Scholar
Robertson, G. S. 1896. The Kafirs of the Hindu-Kush. London.Google Scholar
Schneider, D. M. 1965. ‘Some muddles in the models’, in The Relevance of Models for Social Anthropology. London.Google Scholar
Stauder, J. 1971. The Majangir. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Steward, J. 1968. ‘Causal factors and processes in the evolution of pre-farming societies’, in Man the Hunter (eds.) Lee, R. B. and DeVore, I.Chicago.Google Scholar
Williams, S. N. 1971. ‘The limitations of the male/female activity dimension among primates’, American Anthropologist, 73, 805–6.Google Scholar
Worsley, P. M. 1956. ‘The kinship system of the Tallensi: a revaluation,’ J.R. Anthrop. Inst., 86, 37–75.Google Scholar