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Family, marriage and divorce in a Hausa community: a sociological model

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

Luigi M. Solivetti
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Extract

The aim of this article is to show how a ‘traditional’ society may produce a household system in which the structural tensions are no less intense than in the Western world. Muslim Hausa society (in northern Nigeria) has one of the highest rates of divorce (and remarriage) in the world. An explanation is sought here in terms of the economic and organisational requirements of a subsistence farming system that is always potentially short of labour. Divorce is a solution to otherwise unacceptable pressures, particularly on young women, in a society that requires them to be subordinate and marginal within the extended family. The data presented here were collected between 1979 and 1989 in the Niger valley of Sokoto State in northern Nigeria.

Résumé

L'objectif de cet article est de montrer comment une société traditionnelle peut produire un système familial dans lequel les tensions structurelles ne sont pas moins intense que dans le monde occidental. La société musulmane Hausa (au nord du Nigéria) a un taux de divorce (et de remariage) parmi les plus élevés du monde. Une explication est recherchée ici en termes des exigences économiques et organisationnelles d'un système agricole de subsistance qui manque toujours partiellement de main d'oeuvre. Le divorce est une solution aux pressions autrement inacceptables, en particulier sur les jeunes femmes, dans une société qui exige d'elles qu'elles soient subordinées et marginales au sein de la famille étendue. Les données qui sont présentées ici ont été recueillies entre 1979 et 1989 dans la vallée du Niger dans l'Etat de Sokoto au nord du Nigéria.

Type
Sexuality, HIV and divorce
Information
Africa , Volume 64 , Issue 2 , April 1994 , pp. 252 - 271
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1994

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