Whether Moroccan women are secluded or not they need the company, services and material support of other women, since those of men are not available to them. These women tend to be kin, especially in the ksar, but as I have pointed out in Chapter 3 they may be patronesses or clients of various kinds. They demand of each other severe standards of behaviour. Educated or working women and even dancers adhere to these norms when they are interacting with other women, and come equally under the sanction of rebuke from those women vested with authority, or of withdrawal of support. Most women belong to several overlapping co-operative networks. If a woman loses her place in one, she has others to fall back on, but in the last resort only that based on her own ‘kindred of co-operation’ is indestructible. Even if she herself falls out with her kin, her children's relationship with them is not affected.

In the pages which follow, I discuss first of all how the allocation of authority among women is related to the division of labour, and move on to point out the structural importance of uterine kinship

Division of labour and allocation of authority among women in all social milieux

Within groups of co-operating women, domestic tasks are allocated in a way which reflects the status of its various members. In this way some tasks come to be associated with low esteemed status, others with highly esteemed status.