SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS

Affinity

Refers to relationship by marriage, affinal kin or relatives are also referred to as “in-laws”

Marriage is a socially recognized union between a man and a woman or a man and women

Marriage is closely related to the institution of the family (discussed later)

Common Types of Marriages

Monogamy

 One man, one wife

 Commonest in Western societies but also present in non-Western societies

Polygamy

Consists of two forms of marriage (polygyny and polyandry)

i. Polygyny
A recognized marriage between a man a two or more women. Polygyny is
common in Africa and a number of other Third World Countries in Asia and Latin
America. In a number of cases, polygyny has been associated with inter-spousal
autonomy within the family set-up. Polygyny has been linked to gender
imbalances favoring men against women. Writing on the polygnous African
Households for example, Lienhardt (1978) noted that such household’s appear to
be united only in the father but divided through the mothers as each wife has her
own hut and looks after her own children ( p 102) Wilson (1950) on Nyakyusa
kinship in Tanzania, noted that plygynists tend to be older men of over 15years.
Among the Kisii of Kenya, polygyny was associated with division of labor in
which women carried out much of the agricultural production and young husbands
tended to be initially monogamous bu became polygamous as they grew older
(Levine and Levine 1963)
Implying that extra wives tend to be seen essentially as extra source of labor.

Causes of Polygyny

1
A number of factors lead to polygyny:

 Widow inheritance (levirate) as an already married man takes over from

the deceased brother. This was also a requirement by ancient Jews in order
to facilitate lineage continuity (Lienhardt, 1978: 110)
 Ghost marriage because the woman married to the ghost of the dead man
has to be under the care of one of the male relatives who already has his
own life.
 Woman to woman marriage: Barren woman marry their own wives to
produce babies on their behalf. In practice such a woman ends up being
attached to another male family member
 Wealthy women also marry their own “wives” to assist them. Such a wives
have to be attached to some male kin for care and fulfillment of a number
of essential services and obligations
 High profile and wealthy individuals and chiefly families with much
entertainment to do, marry additional wives to help the domestic chores

ii. Polyandry
This is a form of marriage in which one woman marries and lives with two or
more husbands. It is now rare but used to be found in the former Belgian Congo,
Northern Nigeria and parts of Asia especially Tiber. Polyandry favored situations
of resources scarcity. If two or so brothers, for example, shared a wife, then they
do not have to over-fragment the little land available for their use. The shared wife
too can only produce a limited number of children thus averting a large family and
competition over resources.

Ghost Marriages

It is a requirement in some cultures that every man must have children to preserve and
perpetuate his name. in such cases, and if a man dies without a wife and children, close kin
for example, a brother or one of the male relatives of the deceased is customarily required to
get a wife for his dead brother and sire children on behalf of the deceased’s ghost. This
phenomenon is known as ghost marriage and the offspring from the relationship are assumed
to belong to the dead man.

2
Levirate

Upon the death of a brother, his widow is required by custom to marry one of the remaining
brothers, preferably the eldest. This is a form of wife inheritance.

 The institution is however viewed more substantively as providing social and

economic security for the widow and her children
 It is also a way for the late husband’s family to maintain their rights over the widow’s
sexuality and the future of her children.
 It serves to preserve the kinship bonds already established between the two sides of
in-laws
 Levirate is commonly practiced in most Kenyan cultures today

Sororate

If the wife dies, the husband is customarily entitled to marry a sister or close kin of his
deceased wife. It is assumed that the sister is a good replacement especially to come and take
care of the sister’s children with whom she will already be familiar. The institution also helps
to maintain the relationship between the two families even after the death of one of the
spouse (wife or husband) just as in the case of Levirate

Serial Marriage

This refers to marriage in series without being tied up with multiple spouses at any one given
point in time. Thus a man or woman either marries or lives with a series of partners in
succession. This has tended to be seen as predominantly Western practice, but it is
increasingly becoming common in Africa, especially with the increasing acceptance of the
institution of single motherhood. As he pursuit of individual happiness and comfort continues
to take the center-stage, the stigma hitherto associated with single motherhood and divorce is
fast dying out. So women can now divorce at will and either stay single or look for better
man. Carrer women no longer allow themselves to be logged down in marriages that trap
them against their career advancement or in which they have to endure undue male
chauvinism and mistreatment by their spouses, just to be said and said and seen to be married,
while feigning marital stability for most of the times. In such cases, serial marriage provides a
viable option

Group Marriage

3
While monogamy is among the most advanced forms of marriage, group marriage is said to
be an earlier and backward form of marriage, stemming from promiscuity that characterized
human groups before the development of paring. Causes of group marriage include failure to
have children by the first wife in a polyandrous marriage, thus a second one is brought in; or
one of the husbands falls in love with another woman and brings her into the marriage union,
while the men on their part may find that one or two of them cannot viably produce a child, in
which case, the incumbent team of husbands invites an extra man to join them.

Social, Economic and Legal aspects of Marriage

Social aspects

 Marriage involves a relationship with affine (in-laws)

 Marriage creates an alliance between the two in-law families or groups of kin in effect
initiating a cycle of inter-group exchange relations
 The resultant exchanges involve reciprocity through gifts, financial aid, political
support, favors relating to support on employment opportunities, living with in-laws
while in school or in town looking for jobs etc.
 By taking away the bride, marriage tends to break the family solidarity, causing
structural imbalance hence a specific form of loss
 Thus, the bride wealth payment is seen as an indemnity or compensation to the bride’s
kin for the loss suffered at removal of the bride from her family
 Socially and to an extent, psychologically, bride-wealth payment is seen as
compensation for the psychic pain experienced by the bride’s kin at her removal from
the family of orientation.
 Such compensation therefore restores the equilibrium between the two groups
involved.


Legal Aspects

 Marriage is viewed as a social contract

 Marriage is a social contract between a man and a woman that grants them exclusive
sexual access to each other.

4
  A classic example of marriage as a social contract is exemplified in the Bible where in
recognition of the binding nature of the affine link to her mother in-law. Ruth
promised her mother-in-law never to desert her, thus “whenever you go, I will go,
wherever you live, I will live, your people shall be my people and your God my God”
(Ruth 1:16)
 Bride wealth, in societies where it is paid, and once paid, serves to further legitimize
the social contract aspect of the marriage as a form of exchange
 Any payments made serve to symbolize the man’s authority over his wife and
children.

Economic Aspects

 Bride wealth payment, upon marriage, represents both social and economic
dimensions
 Bride wealth payment is also meant to ensure that the bride will be well treated,
failure to which she will return home to her parents, who will in such cases be
required to return whatever bride wealth they had received from their in-laws
 The girl’s parents will, however, refuse to return or refund the bride-wealth if the
groom is the groom is to blame for the marriage beak-up. In such eventuality, the
bride-groom loses both the wife and property paid out as bride-wealth
 Upon her marriage, the bride’s lineage is seen to lose a useful worker at marriage
 This loss (of a woman) is seen no just as a social but also a reproductive and
economic deprivation
 The groom himself, his family or even lineage are thus required to make up for this
loss through bride-wealth payment
 This payment is actually a price (bride-price) but economic anthropologists rejected
its interpretation as a price per se, given that it is not just a sale of a woman but has
social legal components, beyond the purely economic.
i. Bride wealth
 If bride-wealth is viewed as some form of compensation, then the entire marriage
process becomes some form of economic transaction in which a woman is
exchanged for valued goods such as money or livestock, among other forms of
wealth.
 Pastoralists use livestock, while farmers use mainly capital in settling bride-wealth
claims.

5
  Inflation of bride-wealth has been witnessed among many Kenyan societies
 If the two in-law groups do not expect much potential for continued friendly
exchanges into the future, there is a likelihood of one or both sides attempting to
optimize the bride-wealth returns, as if making a quit claim, in sale as seen as
being likely to be final.
 Where the groom’s family is wealthy, he bride-wealth claims are likely to be
inflated to match the financial might of the groom. This was observed among the
Turkana who apparently were doing well with the fishing industry along the
shores of Lake Turkana (Njeru 1984)
 Similar cases of serious bargain during bride-wealth negotiations have also been
noted among Other Kenyan societies
 Once bride-wealth is paid for a woman, she is almost viewed as property of the
husband’s kin, and if her husband dies, another one is identified foe her among the
husband’s male kin who contributed to the bride-wealth payment.
 If the widow goes away, this is treated as a breach of contract, and her people are
required to return the bride-wealth paid for her in full, plus interest in either
monetary form or the offspring (full genealogy) of the animals initially paid out.
 Schneider (1979: 242) an economic anthropologist, described bride-wealth
payment in strictly economic terms, viewing it as an exchange of bride-wealth,
wives and the services provided by the latter. He saw the bride-wealth cattle as
large notes while the sheep and goats represented small notes, as and as the
change in value of the women is said to lead to upward reviews of bride-wealth
payments.
 The purely economic aspects are exemplified by a case reported of a 16 year old
school girl in a secondary school in Western Kenya whose guardian immediately
pledged her for marriage to an old man with whom he had negotiated a payment
of 26 cows as bride-wealth, once the girl was sent home foe school fees. The
exchange was however stopped by the District Social Welfare Officer, once it was
highlighted Newspaper (Daily Nation February 21, 1987:5)

ii. Dowry.
 Essentially, the bride’s parents pay a sum of money and other valuables to the
parents of the groom to escort the bride into the marriage

6
  This was commonly found in Medieval Europe and currently in India
 In pre-industrial Europe, the dowry was obligatory and formed an important
aspect of the marriage contract. It was meant to provide the wife with some
security, should she not be well cared for by the husband and his kin.
 In India, such dowry can be particularly high when the groom has particularly
good occupational prospects upon University education (especially if educated in
some of the prestigious Western Universities)
 Some families get into heavy debts, their daughters marry on credit
 For other families, the dowry could cost them all their savings for many years
 Dowry payment is associated with low status of women in society and is
sometimes seen as compensation to the husband for the burden, so husbands and
their families expect to be compensated for the added responsibility
 Dowry payment has also been associated with corruption, as some families
mistreat the bride in order to chase her away, after which they marry another one
and get more dowry
 In some cases, the brides are said to face mysterious deaths or disappearance and
the grooms can make fortunes as they keep on re-marrying.

Dowry payment today

A semblance of dowry payment today is reflected in the generous send-off wedding gifts
by the bride’s skin. Though not compulsory, such gifts have become a convectional
expectation. As such they and appear to represent a modern form of dowry payment. In
some cases, the gifts are extremely lavish and could solve the economic problems of the
new couple for quite some time into their future

iii. Bride Service

This is also referred to as “Suitor Service”

The requirement is that the man, before marriage, works for the girl’s parents for a given
period of time.

7
A classic example of bride service is that of Jacob, son of Isaac, who wanted to marry his
mother’s brother’s (uncle Laban’s) daughter, Rachel.

Rachel had an elder sister called Leah, and the tradition then did not allow Racheal, the
younger sister to marry before Leah, the elder sister had got married. This requirement is
also common in Kenyan societies

So Jacob put in 7years of bride service, looking after Laban’s flock (sheep and goats) but
was given Leah and not Racheal, his choice

Consequently, he decided to put in another 7 years of bride service for Racheal

Having married his two sister-wives, Jacob worked for another 6 years as a shepherd to
get wealth for him and his family to subsist on.

But Rachel proved to be barren, to start with, Leah was producing children, making his
sister Racheal jealous

The jealous Rachel said to her husband Jacob, “take my slave girl and have relations with
her” which Jacob did

With time, Leah’s womb was also closed by God and Rachel’s opened, to allow her to
start having children. It was Leah’s turn to become jealous and she too asked her
husband Jacob to “take my slave girl and have relations with her”. At the end of it all,
Jacob had four wives (Genesis 29)

In some African societies, men who pay little or no bride-wealth are often called upon
by their in-laws to perform various functions and piece-meal tasks, which are
tantamount to indirect form of bride service. A son-in-law who pays little or no bride-
wealth, remains indebted to his in-laws, making it morally difficult for him to turn
down requests to provide some service to the in-laws.

The Family

The family is one of the key outcomes of marriage and has the following function:

Functions of the family

i. Reproductive

8
 This function pertains to production of new members and replacement of the
dying for the lineage continuity

ii. Sex regulation

Beyond mere reproductive aspects, the family acts as a sex regulation unit by
providing an environment that is conducive to legal and socially approved
sexual relations between man and wife. Where nobody complains. Sexual
gratification has powerfully binding emotional forces, responsible for stable
members of society rather than sexual perverts and rapists.

iii. Economic function

The family acts as the core unit of production handling the division of labour
by sex (men hunt and women do the gathering, take care of meals, clothing
and child care). In simple societies, such as those of hunters and gatherers, the
family constitutes an important economic unit. Even in modern societies, the
family plays critical economic functions.

iv. Status determination.

Getting into marriage and the family institution is important in according
status, out of bachelorhood. There is more recognition and legitimacy based
on having children within marriage. Having children outside marriage is
frowned upon.

v. Basic security and emotional satisfaction

o For the benefit of socialization of the children, the adult-child ratio is
usually more satisfactory within the family context. This is a critical
maintenance function, good for both parents and the children.
o Emotional satisfaction can, of course, be fulfilled elsewhere,
o Remember that some families have neurotic parents. Thus there is no
guarantee that children in a family with both parents will always be
properly socialized.

vi. Educational institution

9
 o For enculturation or socialization of the child. Most of this is currently
done by the school, the mass media and peer groups, but the family
plays critically complementary functions.
 All of the above functions can sometimes be even more effectively fulfilled outside
the family unit, but on average the family environment is the most suitably accessible
for the majority.
vii. Enforcement of exogamy and incest taboo
 Scholars differentiate between the family of orientation (where one was born) and the
family of procreation (the family after marriage).
 In the family of orientation, both marriage and sexual relations are forbidden and
proscribed as incest taboo.
 Incest taboos concern sexual relations while rules of exogamy (requirement to marry
outside a particular group, sometimes a rural village – in which residents are likely to
be related) have to do with marriage.
 Unilineal kin groups, particularly lineages and clan are generally exogamous.

10