The Perception and Implications of Bride-Wealth for Marital Relationship: Gender Analysis through Sukuma Oral Arts
Abstract
This study examines perception and implications of bride-wealth among the Sukuma of Tanzania. The data, which were basically the Sukuma views and the discourse of their songs were collected using interviews and observations. The analysis and interpretation of the study findings was informed by the social construction theory of reality. Two specific questions; guided the study: What knowledge do the Sukuma have about the role and practice of bride-wealth? How do the Sukuma oral arts communicate the social practices of bride-wealth in the community? The integration of songs with people’s views facilitates understanding of the context in which bride-wealth is practiced and transmitted from one generation to another. It also highlights the efficacy of oral arts, specifically songs reflecting social reality. The study reveals that the cultural practice of paying the bride-wealth in the Sukuma, on the one hand, makes the married woman a man’s product as it ties all the movement of her life; on the other hand, it threatens men’s identity, especially those who cannot manage to pay it in full. Generally, the study demonstrates how oral arts provide knowledge on power relations resulting from the inherent social practices of marriage. This knowledge contributes to the understanding of gender status quo in African countries which is one the ongoing debates globally.
Keywords:
Bride-wealth, arranged marriage, marital relationship
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Berger, P and T. Luckmann. 1966, The social construction of reality: A treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge, Doubleday, Gar¬den City.
Cha, Y. P. 2010, An introduction to Hmong culture, McFarland & Co., Publishers, Jefferson, NC.
Davies, C. B. 1986, Motherhood in the works of male and female Igbo writers: Achebe, Emecheta, Nwapa, and Nzekwu in Davies, C. B and Graves, A. A. (eds) Ngambike, Studies of Women in African Literature (pp. 241-256), Africa World Press Inc, Trenton, New Jersey.
Furniss, G. 1995, The Power of words and relation between Hausa genres, in Furniss, G and Gunner, L., (eds), Power, Marginality and African Oral Literature (pp 1-22), Cambridge University Press, New York.
Kabaji, S. E. 2005, The construction of gender through the narrative process of the African Folktales: A case study of the Maragoli, PhD Thesis, University of South Africa.
Kyalo, P.M. 2011, The future of African family and community analysis on traditional Akamba marriage: Implications for Christian marriage, International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, vol. 1 (21), pp. 156-166.
Louis, M. R. 1980, Surprise and sense making: What newcomers experience in Entering unfamiliar organizational settings, Administrative Science Quarterly, vol. 25, pp. 226–251.
Lowes, S & N. Nunn. 2017, Bride rice and the wellbeing of women, Wider working aper, United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (Publicatins@wider.unu,edu).
Makino, M. 2014, Dowry and women’s status in rural Pakistan: Interim report for institutional roles of marriage in the developing world: Empirical studies from the perspectives of Gender Empowerment, IDE-JETRO.
Nnaemeka, O. 2005, Bringing African women into the classroom: Rethinking, pedagogy and epistemology in Oyewumi, O. (ed), African Gender Studies: A Reader (pp 51-66), Palgrave Macmillan Publishers, New York.
Paltridge, B. 2006, Discourse analysis: Continuum discourse series, Continuum International Publishing Group, New York.
Seital, P. 1999, The powers of genre: Interpreting Haya oral literature, Oxford University Press, New York.
Servatius Lon, Y & S. Widyawati. 2018, Bride-wealth: Is there respect for women in Manggarai, Eastern Indonesia?, Humaniora, vol. 30, no. 3, pp. 271–278.
Schneider, A., & Ingram, H. 1993, The social construction of target populations: Implications for politics and policy, American Political Science Review, vol. 87, pp. 334-347.
Titi, F. 2019, Bride price syndrome and dominance in marriage: An expository analysis, International Journal of Humanities Social Sciences and Education, vol 6, no. 8, pp. 132-139.
Verba, S. 1997, Feminist and womanist criticism of African Literature: A Bibliography, http://always-ingreen.blogspot.com/2010/12/feminist-and-womanist-criticism-of.html Site visited on 2 May 2020.
Wojcicki, S. & Padian. 2010, Bride-wealth, sexual and reproductive practices among women in Harare, Zimbabwe, AIDS Care, vol. 22, no. 6, pp. 705-710.
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.