We conducted semi-structured focus group discussions and in-depth individual interviews with 32 participants, made up of 16 perpetrators men and 16 victims women from rural and urban Ghana.
That is, we classified female participants with self-reported experiences of physical or sexual abuse, or both, from current or past marital partner as victims, and men who had inflicted physical or sexual abuse, or both, on a current or past marital partner as perpetrators.
Our study discovered that both male and female participants thought bride price practice was necessary for achieving desired masculinity and femininity in Ghana. Female participants saw it as an important part of womanhood, bestowing respect and dignity in marriage. Men, on the other hand, viewed it as a necessary condition for male identity in society.
Failure to fulfil it could greatly undermine their identity and dominance in marriage. It was evident in our study that bride price could lead women to appear worthless unless paid for, and to be treated however a man wants. For example, in response to whether or not bride price practice should be proscribed, one female participant from a rural area said:. How can we abolish our tradition?
I will not agree that a man should walk into my house and take my daughter without a bride price. Also, male participants in the study described bride price tradition as a material condition for maintaining culturally assumed masculine identity and authority in marriage.
Having a bride-priced wife was seen as a masculine accomplishment. Psychologically, the practice created an ownership mentality in men. I believe bride price is part of the reason [why husbands abuse their wives] because it shows that I have acquired you from your parents or family so they know I have to take care of you. If I take care of you then you must also obey what I say. Once the family accepts the bride price, they also accept that the woman is in my care and if anything should happen to her they will ask me.
He may otherwise use them to acquire wives for himself or other members of his family. A father is expected to provide first wives for his sons, although this contribution, as many other transactions in the system, sets up a debt. In the South African system marriage cattle form the focus of an alliance system similar to one constructed through cross cousin marriage , except that cattle as well as women are systematically transferred from family to family. In some cases lobola and cross cousin marriage are interrelated.
He will usually use these cattle to acquire a wife of his own, a benefit for which he becomes indebted to his sister.
Accordingly, he is required to give her the right to determine the marriage of one of his daughters and forgo any expectation of a bride payment. His sister may marry off her niece to her son, creating a matrilateral cross cousin marriage.
The South African example introduces a curious problem related to the status of family and lineage groupings. The alliance theory of marriage maintains that the circulation of women and cattle binds the groups that make up the society into a system of reciprocal exchange and cooperation in which all units are equal.
In the South African systems economic, political, and social inequalities are actually structural features of marriage institutions. Selected patrilineages assume aristorcratic statuses in numerous kingdoms and chiefdoms in the region and maintain and validate their leadership positions specifically in terms of the lobola system. This arrangement is term hypergamy , an institution in which women marry upward rather than in an egalitarian circle.
They accumulate at the top, where the major power holders benefit and enhance their status by having many wives in return for the redistribution of their cattle to lower ranking groups. High status occupants includes kings and ranks of subordinate chieftains and, sometimes, queens and other female power holders, who use their wives and cattle as political currency in the same way as their male counterparts.
Save This Word! We could talk until we're blue in the face about this quiz on words for the color "blue," but we think you should take the quiz and find out if you're a whiz at these colorful terms.
Origin of bride price First recorded in — Words nearby bride price bridal , Bridalveil , bridal wreath , bride , bridegroom , bride price , bridesmaid , bridewell , Bridey , bridezilla , bridge. Physiology of The Opera John H.
0コメント