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The house-property complex and African social organisation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

Regina Smith Oboler
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Extract

A feature of the ethnography of eastern and southern African cattle-keeping peoples is a high level of contradiction in the assessment of the status of women. Better understanding of the house-property complex, the property and inheritance system characteristic of these peoples, can resolve some seeming contradictions. In this system, all property (especially livestock) held by a polygynous family is divided and held separately by the nuclear family of each wife. Sons inherit from the property of their own mother's house rather than from a general pool of their father's property.

The article analyses variations in the norms of the house-property complex from one society to another. The institution is said to be ‘highly developed’ if more cattle are allocated as house property than are retained in men's residual herds, if women's rights in their house property are thought of as inalienable, if wives have some recourse should their husbands appropriate their house property, and if rules preventing redistribution of property or bridewealth between houses are rarely violated.

A frequently overlooked aspect of this property system is that it gives women well denned rights in property, despite public ideologies (often overstated, especially by male informants) that cattle belong to men. There are actually, in at least some societies, several named categories of cattle. In each category, different individuals have predominant rights. Women actively defend their interests in cattle in which their rights predominate, and manipulate those rights to gain their ends in social interaction. These points are illustrated with case material from Nandi District, Kenya.

The degree to which women have some control over property is obscured both by culturally endorsed simplifications and by the ethnographic situation in which male ethnographers historically interviewed male informants about property holding. Nevertheless, clues to women's participation in property management may be found in many classic ethnographies, and are cited in the article.

Résumé

Une des caractéristiques de l'ethnographie des peuples gardeurs de troupeaux à l'est et au sud de l'Afrique est un grand niveau de contradiction dans l'évaluation du statut des femmes. Une plus grande compréhension du ‘house-property complex’, du système de propriété et de succession qui est caractéristique de ces peuples peut résoudre certaines de ces contradictions apparentes. Dans ce systeme toute propriété (en particulier le bétail) qui appartient à une famille polygame est divisée et appropriée séparément par la famille nucléaire de chaque femme. Les fils héritent de la maison de leurs propres mères plutôt que d'un fonds commun des propriétés de leurs pères.

Cet article analyse les variations dans les normes du ‘house-property complex’ d'une société à une autre. On dit que l'institution est ‘très développée’ si plus de bétail est attribué en tant que propriété immobilière que celui retenu dans le troupeau des hommes, si les droits des femmes concernant la propriété immobilière sont considérés comme étant inaliénables, si les femmes peuvent avoir recours au cas ou leurs mans s'approprieraient de leurs propriétés immobilières, et si les lois empêchant la redistribution des propriétés ou des richesses de leurs femmes entre les maisons ne sont pas transgressées.

Un aspect de ce système de propriété qui est souvent négligé c'est que celui-ci donne aux femmes des droits de propriété bien établis, en dépit d'opinions publiques (fréquemment exagérées surtout par les répondants masculins) que le bétail appartient aux hommes. II y a en fait, du moins dans certaines sociétés, plusieurs catégories de bétail. Dans chaque catégorie ce sont des individus différents qui ont des droits prédominants. Les femmes défendent activement leurs intérêts en ce qui concerne le bétail sur lequel leurs droits prédominent et manipulent ces droits pour parvenir à leursfinslors d'une interaction sociale. Ces points sont illustrés avec du matériel provenant d'une étude de cas du district Nandi, Kenya.

Le degré jusqu'auquel les femmes ont contrôle de leurs propriétés est obscurci à la fois par des simplifications endorsées culturellement et par la situation ethnographique dans laquelle les ethnographes masculins ont historiquement interviewé des répondants masculins au sujet de la propriété. Néanmoins des indices concernant la participation des femmes à la gestion des propriétés peuvent être trouvées dans beaucoup d'ethnographies classiques et sont citées dans cet article.

Type
Liquid Assets
Information
Africa , Volume 64 , Issue 3 , July 1994 , pp. 342 - 358
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1994

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