“Towards Rebuilding a Stable Family System in Africa”

By

F. A Badru, Ph.D., MNIM, FWACN

Department of Sociology,

Faculty of Social Sciences,

University of Lagos, Lagos Nigeria

Mobile Tel. No: +234-803-327-0662

badrufat@yahoo.com

Abstract

Separation, divorce and empty-shell families dot a number of human societies.

Things have fallen apart and the centre could no longer hold. Chastity, before

marriage and mutual fidelity after, which tend to promote family harmony and

serenity among other cherished family values of Africans, are systematically being

eroded by combined forces of modernization and balkanized education. Extended

family system is being replaced by nuclear family, which is further atomized and

pauperized by globalized factors with its attendant manifest and unintended

consequences for the stability of family. These tend to engender adverse impact on

the offspring of such families. What influence has globalization and modernization

played in this scenario? The paper interrogates the socio-economic correlates of

the erosion of extant and pristine family values and advocates that we trace our

step and return to glory of rebuilding a united, stable and sound family system in

Africa learning from what our progenitors have done right.

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 TOWARDS REBUILDING A STABLE FAMILY SYSTEM IN AFRICA

1. Introduction

This paper asserts that a stable family is not elusive and suggests that a number of

pragmatic ‘traditional’ social activities of our progenitors should be exhumed to fuel

the pristine harmonious, desired and desirous families that societies all over the

world are searching for. The paper interrogates factors that promote stable

families in Africa and alludes to variables that have been indicted in the literature

to be responsible for shaking the firm root of this basic institution in different

forms across the globe of Africa and outside the confines of Africa. The forms of

the instability are also catalogued. The paper starts with basic conceptual

clarification of families alluding to various shades of informed opinions.

The literature is replete with the social fact that separation, divorce and empty-

shell families dot a number of human societies, developed and underdeveloped alike.

Things seem to have fallen apart and the centre could no longer hold (Ekiran, 2003;

Badru, 2004a; Otite, 2004). It is said that African families’ values are

systematically being eroded by combined forces of modernization/urbanization and

balkanized education (Suda, 1996; Badru, 2004b; Oyewumi, 2006). Many Africans

obtained their advanced formal education with the facilitation and active

collaboration of elites, both governing and non-governing, who provided the

definition of situation and shaped the forms and contents of formal education

received. The latter tends to undermine the cherished values of Africa and

promote hegemonic received knowledge which may be anti-thetical to family

stability with the result of atomized families. Badru, (2004b:46-52) had provided a

number of factors such as urbanization forces that have been responsible for

uprooting the stability of family. The empirical referents include increasing rates

of premarital pregnancy, conjugal conflict, poor socialization of young boys and girls

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and rising levels of crimes, increasing rate of teenage mothers and single parents

and female-headed household. In addition, socialization role of mothers is being

supplanted by other agents such as nurse-maids, house helps and motherless babies’

homes (Olusanya, 1981). The childcare support provided by grandparents in

extended family is hardly available now. Co-residentiality which tended to provide

protection and succour for members have been dismantled as husbands and wives

have to work, sometimes in different and far location from each other to earn a

living. Patrilocal rule of residence is being replaced by neolocal residence. Extended

family system is being substituted by nuclear family, which is further atomized and

pauperized by globalized factors with its attendant manifest and unintended

consequences for the stability of family and its constituents. These tend to

engender adverse impact on the offspring of such families. In the past, chastity

before marriage was preached and deviation was sanctioned. Promiscuity was

proscribed. Mutual fidelity was treasured as a value. These values, among others,

engender family harmony and happiness. Even before marriage is contracted, a lot

of things go into place like background checking to ensure that chances of marital

disharmony is reduced to the barest minimum and that social solidarity/bond

between two families beyond the spouses contracting the marriage is enhanced.

Modernisation/urbanization and negative social change factors seem to have

upturned this scenario. The paper interrogates the socio-economic correlates of

the erosion of these extant and pristine family values and advocates that we trace

our step and return to glory of rebuilding a united, stable and sound family system

in Africa learning from what our progenitors have done right.

The paper contains three sections in addition to the introduction. The second

section provides the conceptual clarification of families and draws attention to the

various schools of thought on families. While there are many theories that can be

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used, the paper pitches its tent with functionalist and symbolic interactionistic

schools for heuristic reasons to explain the social fact. The third examines six

functions of families and illuminates what is operationally considered as family

stability and some factors that tend to inhibit family strength. It also looks at

empirical manifest and latent impacts of such unstable families. The last section

provides social strategies to achieve stable and happy families with templates

capable of being replicated in other societies so that we can rebuild a strong,

united and stable family in our societies. The section also shelters the concluding

remarks.

2. CONCEPTUAL ISSUES

2.1. What is family?

Microsoft Encarta World English Dictionary (1999:673) asserts that family is a

group of relatives; groups of people who are closely related by birth, marriage or

adoption; group of people living together and functioning as a single household

usually consisting of parents and their children. This is not comprehensive enough.

Hogan (2006:157), in “Dictionary of Sociology”, opines that family is a basic kinship

unit, in its minimal form, consisting of a husband, wife and children. In its widest

sense, it refers to all relatives living together or recognized as a social unit,

including adopted persons. This excludes family members who live in different

locations and yet share the same family origin. Mitchell (1979: 80) quoting Burgess

and Locke, in their book: “The Family” affirms that the ‘family is a group of persons,

united by the ties of marriage, blood, adoption, consisting a single household,

interacting and inter-communicating with each other in their respective social roles

of husband and wife, mother and father, brother and sister, creating a common

culture”. This again leaves out multiple household families. In addition, it is silent on

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single parent families, same-sex families and “empty –shell” families without

offspring, which can be a battle front for some couples. Thus, the cited definitions

are not perfect. However, they are useful for our purpose here.

It is said that we should be talking about families rather than a family as there are

several variants and structure of families across the globe. Family is thus a multi-

dimensional concept. This has been attested to by great anthropologists such as

George Peter Murdock, among others that have studied a sample of 250 societies

and concluded that it is a universal social institution, though contested by other

scholars. (Haralambos and Heald, 2001: 325). Many of the families contracted in

African societies tend to tilt towards extended rather than single parent, same sex

and empty shell typologies. It should be stated that the dichotomy of

nuclear/extended family is rather ethnocentric and reflect western ideological and

epistemological dominant bias (Suda, 1996; Oyewumi, 2006). In Africa, there are

familiar nuances across the African continent that put serious questions to the

aforesaid conceptual bifurcation of nuclear/conjugal/extended family. This is not a

water tight category as the family form is fluid and tends more towards extended/

modified extended family system in Africa. We shall return to this by citing some

examples from some African countries.

2.2 Review of Pertinent Literature

In this section, we shall allude to conceptual definitions of families as seen in the

literature. We shall point to family-related views, examine inclusive definitions, look

at theoretical positions, interrogate situational perspectives and consider

normative definitions.

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2.2.1 Family related views

There has been a dilemma in appropriately defining the word: family. Through her

research, Trost (1990) pointed to this overwhelming definitional dilemma

experienced by family researchers. Specifically, she illustrated the difficulty and

diversity with which people classify those who could or should be labeled family

members. For some, in her sample, family consisted of only closest family members,

the nuclear family, while for others, family contained various other kin, friends, and

even pets. This study highlights the difficulty in defining who should be included or

excluded as a member of the family. However, the complexity of defining the family

does not end with the determination of family membership. Family definitions may

also be linked to ideological differences.

For instance, Scanzoni, et.al (1989:27), in their effort to enlarge the definition of

the family in the 1980s, saw the traditional family as two parents and a child or

children constituting the prevailing pattern of the family. To them, "all other family

forms or sequencing tend to be labelled as deviant…)". They opposed the view held

by many early writers that the traditional family was the ideal family, the family

type by which the success of other families may be evaluated. This statement

depicts how the conception of family is not only structurally focused but also

oriented to both ideology and process.

Allen (2000:7) illuminates this ideology and process when she states, "Our

assumptions, values, feelings, and histories shape the scholarship we propose, the

findings we generate, and the conclusions we draw. Our insights about family

processes and structures are affected by our membership in particular families, by

the lives of those we study, and by what we care about knowing and explaining." It

is, therefore, indubitable that these inescapable ideological differences result in a

definition of the family that is driven by theory, history, culture, and situation.

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Other scholars have contended that the definition of family will fluctuate based on

situational requirements. Most experts in the field have strong views that "there is

no single correct definition of what a family is" (Fine 1993: 235). “Rather, the

approaches that individuals have taken in attempting to define the family have

ranged in meaning from very specific to very broad, from theoretical to practical,

and from culturally specific to culturally diverse”.

2.2.2 Related Constructs

Other scholars have made efforts at defining the family based on constructs that

are bigger than the family. Difficulty and theoretical problems related to defining

family or families have led some to seek broader constructs that transcend the

definition of the family, from their view leading to a higher level of understanding

(Goode 1959; Kelley et al., 1983; Scanzoni et al. 1989). For instance, a close

relationship defined as "strong, frequent, and diverse, interdependence that lasts

over a considerable period of time" is a broader construct than family (Kelley

1983:38). This has been viewed as an encompassing term that would define most

families. However, this generalizing concept, although applicable to most families,

does not apply to all families; for instance, the family where a parent is absent and

does not want to be present. It also includes others who are not part of the family

such as friends and co-workers.

The family can also been viewed as a kind of social group, a group held together by a

common principle. Although the family is indeed a social group, it is a social group

that is very distinct when compared to other social groups. Scholars have pointed

out dissimilarities between families and other social groups (Day, Gilbert, Settles,

and Burr, 1995). These features include the following: (1) family membership may

be involuntary, and the connection may be more permanent; (2) actions of family

members can be hidden and thus there is a safe environment provided for openness

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and honesty but also an environment for murky activities such as abuse, addictions,

and neglect; (3) family members may be more intensely bonded through emotional

ties; (4) there is often a shared family model or world view; and (5) there is

frequently a biological connectedness that is not present in other social groups.

The appraisal of these two enriching constructs makes it evident that although

larger constructs are useful in understanding the family, they do not specifically

define family. These broad constructs allow for the inclusion of those not part of

the family and the exclusion of those who are part of the family. To address the

problem of excluding family members, some scholars have attempted to develop

definitions of the family by accounting for any type of family. This takes us to

inclusive definitions.

2.2.3 Inclusive Definitions

Inclusive definitions are those that are so broad that no one's perception of family

will be excluded. For example, Holstein and Gubrium (1995) illustrate an inclusive

definition of the family by utilizing a phenomenological and ethno-methodological

theoretical perspective in an attempt to understand how individuals experience

reality. Family, based on this perspective, is each individual's interpretation of who

their kin are. The basic argument is that meanings and interpretations have no

connection to rules, norms, or culture. Thus, the definition of family is based on the

individual's local subculture and is his or her own reality. For instance, Rothberg and

Weinstein (1966:57) illustrate an inclusive definition that can encompass all local

subcultures by stating that: "the constellation of family is limited only by the limits

of participants' creativity".

Inclusive definitions are reasoned and scholarly attempts to deal with the

increasing diversity of close relationships in postmodern societies. The term family

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has been replaced by families and has become the embodiment of whatever the

individual perceives to be family (Schaefer, 2005).

Based on this type of definition, the family becomes whatever the individual wants

it to be. The definition of family is thus dependent on every feature of an

individual's life, including beliefs, culture, ethnicity, and even situational

experiences. Although this definition type tends to portend universal appeal, it is

very tenuous, thus making research on the family difficult. For this reason, other

researchers have proposed definitions of the family that focus on similarities

among families and thus allow for theoretical as well as applied research (Suda,

1996; Haralambos and Heald, 2001; Schaefer, 2005).

2.2.4 Theoretical Positions

Theoretical perspectives consider the shades of opinions according to the

theoretical orientation of the schools concerned. Multiple definitions of family have

been formulated from particular theoretical schools (Doherty et al. 1993,

Haralambos and Heald, 2001; Schaefer, 2005). Because of the variety of

definitions that can be linked with specific theories, Smith (1995) was able to

create a different definition of the family for each of about eight theoretical

approaches. The paper will consider in detail one of these: functionalist, in another

section of this work but would allude briefly to others.

For instance, the definition of family for symbolic interaction theory is a unit of

interacting personalities (Smith 1995; Schaefer, 2005). Those defining the family

from a feminist perspective would assume that there are broad differences

including power inequality among married members and families, and these

differences are greater than the similarities (Schaefer, 2005). The traditional

definition of the family would be rejected with emphasis on change and diversity

(Thompson and Walker 1995).

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However, most theories are not specifically directed at defining the family. Klein

and White (1996) assert that the family developmental theory is the only theory

where the focus is specifically on the family. Other approaches can be and are used

to study other social groups and institutions; in contrast, the developmental

approach is micro-system oriented. According to this theory, family members

occupy socially defined positions (e.g., daughter, mother, father, or son) and the

definition of family changes over the family career.

Initially, the stages of change discussed in the literature related directly to the

nuclear family. According to Mattessich and Hill (1987), some of the original

theorists in the area of family life stage hinge their views on changes in family size,

age composition, and the occupational status of the breadwinner(s). The stages of

family development identified were: childless couples, childbearing families, families

with infants and preschool children, childbearing families with grade-school

children, families with teenagers, families with young adults still at home, families

in the middle years, and aging families (see also Haralambos and Heald, 2001;

Schaefer, 2005).

In the 1990s, researchers updated this theory to include families defined in other

ways over the family careers (White 1991; Rodgers and White 1993; Klein and

White, 1996). These authors specify the significance of change that is related to

other transitions, such as cohabitation, births in later stages, separation, divorce,

remarriage, or death. Thus, how one defines one's own family is not static, but

changes with the addition of family members through close relationships, birth,

adoption, and foster relationships or the loss of family members because of death

or departure.

Talcott Parsons discussed the development of the family by using more generic

family definitions that apply to all members of society. He asserts that one is born

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into the biological family, or one's family of origin. If the individual is raised in this

family, it becomes their family of orientation. However, if the marriage dissolves,

or the child is given up for adoption, the new family of which the individual is part

becomes the family of orientation. However, by leaving this family to marry or

cohabitate, for example, the individual becomes part of the family of procreation.

This term is somewhat tenuous in the sense that in several types of relationships

such as childless or gay and lesbian relationships, procreation may not be a part of

the relationship (Haralambos and Heald, 2001; Schaefer, 2005).

With the move from the family of orientation to family of procreation, the

individual's original nuclear family, or their closest family members, become part of

their kinship group or their extended family, while their new partner or child

becomes part of their new family (McGoldrick and Carter 1982). Thus, this

terminology was developed to describe these family changes. Scholars have

contended that the basic family unit in non-American and non-European countries is

the extended family rather than the nuclear family (Ingoldsby and Smith 1995;

Murdock 1949, Suda, 1996; Schaefer, 2005; Oyewumi, 2006). Oyeronke Oyewumi

(2006) contends that because of the expansion of Europe and the establishment of

Euro/American cultural hegemony throughout the world, social institutions such as

families have been coloured and shaped and their values transmitted to the

Africans with unintended consequence of ‘americanisation/ europeniasation’ of

families. Nuclear/ conjugal family, which was not predominant then, was put on the

front burner. The values changed. Fathers are brain-washed to share in child

rearing and mothers are coerced to work in the formal sector. The children, if any,

become vulnerable to societal ills.

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2.2.5 Situational Definitions

Theoretical definitions direct research, whereas situational definitions are

important in practical situations and thus are the working expressions. This

terminology facilitates the training of professional caregivers. Situational

definitions are used for special types of families and are utilized by individuals

from social service agencies to deal with special situations in which family form is

changed, and a new form of family must emerge to protect those within the family,

often children (Hartman 1990; Seligmann 1990; McNeece 1995). For example,

Crosbie-Burnett and Lewis (1993) utilize a situational definition of family in working

with families where alcohol is abused. The term pedifocal, defined as "all those

involved in the nurturance and support of an identified child, regardless of

household membership (where the child lives) expands the definition of the family

from being only family members to include those working with the family. Thus, the

child's interests are put above other needs to protect the child, despite the change

in family structure and relationships. In this case, others who are not related to

the child may become fictive kin who respond to the child's needs and contributing

to his or her well-being.

Another example could be the Israeli Kibbutz of the past, where children were

cared for in a group setting by people other than their parents

(i.e., the metaplot or caretaker). In this setting, although the children still have

biological parents, they also have caretakers who become their parent figures

(Broude 1994, Haralambos and Heald, 2001; Schaefer, 2005). Based on this

definition, family is expanded to those who may be caretakers and thus may only be

part of one's family for a short period of time.

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2.2.6 Normative Definitions

Within the 1990s and into the early twenty-first century, the definition of family

was no longer confined to the traditional family, but also included the normative

family. Normative is a sociological concept that, according to Abu-Laban and Abu-

Laban, (1994:53) "are agreed upon societal rules and expectations specifying

appropriate and inappropriate ways to behave in a particular society". Families with

at least one parent and one child are viewed as a normative definition of the family

in most if not all societies (Reiss 1965; Rothberg and Weinstein 1966; Levin and

Trost 1992; Bibby 1995). The child in these cases is not necessarily biologically

related to those providing care and nurturance. They may, for example, be adopted,

grandchildren, products of other relationships, or perhaps children conceived

through artificial insemination or a surrogate mother. Despite the lack of biological

relationship, these relationships can still be included as part of the normative

definition of the family. All of these families would be considered examples of the

nuclear family.

Also part of the normative family would be all others who are closest to the

individual. Not only is the parent-child relationship a normative nuclear family in

most societies, the definition of a normal family and nuclear families also includes

couples in close relationships that lead to marriage relationships. However,

expectations of a legitimate and thus a normative family union may vary among and

within various cultures, based on formal rules related to law, religious orientation,

and cultural norms, as well as to informal expectations of family, friends, and

associates.

Information on the intricacy and the cultural diversity of the extended family is

discussed in the writings of many scholars (e.g., Murdock 1949; Stanton 1995;

Haralambos and Heald, 2001; Schaefer, 2005). The reasons that families continue

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to live in an extended family situation vary greatly among cultures and generations.

Some identified in the literature are for mutual assistance both for household work

and income and also the inheritance of property or the perpetuation of kinship

values viewed as important to the preservation of the family system.

Thus, these norms based on culture, religion, and ethnicity, all influence the

definition of the family. These norms may or may not be adhered to, and what is

normative may change over the stages of the family.

Silva and Smith, (1999) have argued that there is ongoing both an epistemological

and a moral debate about what the family is and what the family ought to be.

For some it is easy to define what family should be, namely a heterosexual conjugal

unit based on marriage and co-residence. The main purpose of such a family is often

thought to be able to inculcate proper values in children and to remain independent

of state support (Morhan, 1995; Phillips, 1997). In contrast with this ought, the

activities of how families work and organize themselves is often perceived as sadly

wanting. Thus this framing of how family should be, is often contrasted with

statistics on divorce, lone-parent households, delinquency and so on, to produce a

picture of the family in decline or as disintegrating with a range of disastrous

consequences for the rest of society.

For others, it is less easy to articulate what families should be like. There is, for

example, an emphasis on diversity of family practices which need not emphasize the

centrality of the conjugal bond, which may not insist on co-residence, and which may

not be organized around heterosexuality. This diversity is not interpreted as a sign

of decline or immorality. Rather, change is understood in relation to evolving

employment patterns, shifting gender relations, and increasing option in sexual

orientations. In this model, the family is not expected to remain unchanged and

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unchanging. It is seen as transforming itself in relation to wider social trends and

sometimes it is seen as a source of change itself which prompts changes to occur in

public policy and provision.

Strong families are, of course, seen as conjugal, heterosexual parents with an

employed male breadwinner. Lone mothers and gay couples do not, by definition,

constitute strong families in this rhetoric. On the contrary, they are part of the

problem and part of the process of destabilizing the necessary fortitude of the

proper family.

From the analysis of new family practices, it is posited that contrary to those

interpretations that insist that family links are being weakened, families remain a

crucial relational entity playing a fundamental part in the intimate life of and

connections between the individuals. The more recently accepted narrative of

dynamics between family life and wide structures acknowledges that in the last

half-century or so families have lived through considerably transformations in their

composition and in the conditions under which they accomplish domestic labour, in

the labour associated with the emotional growth and sociability of individuals, and in

their forms of intimacy (Silva and Smart, 1999). The fordist model of production

which dominated production throughout most of this century was based on male

labour with earnings high enough to enable the purchase of consumer durables and

equipment for the home, and to allow housewives to stay at home in order to do the

caring activities needed by husband and children (as producers of the future and

consumers). This model was based on an unequal interdependence of the conjugal

couple and on women’s lack of autonomy (Lefaucher, 1995). The 1970s feminist

debate on domestic labour focused on this particular social dynamic and revealed

the hidden disadvantages for women (Gardiner, 1997). This model of labour and the

15
wage system has been gradually superseded, giving rise to new forms of analysis of

the changes taking place.

According to Silva and Smart, (1999), in the 1990s, the initial core socio-economic

analytical categories like the capitalist and the worker lost their analytical

significance as feminist critiques developed as the labour market itself changed in

relation to changes in the domestic sphere. Notions such as service workers,

professionals, flexible and casual labour, have become key categories in a new

context where the physical components of the workforce are been replaced by

intellectual, cultural and relational components. In the discourse of economics, the

need for ‘physical reproduction’ demanded by the fordist model has given place to

the demands for the ‘reproduction’ of intellectual and emotion ‘capital’. It has

become increasingly important to achieve qualifications, to obtain diplomas, and to

upgrade and update one’s labour skills. In this transformed context, the importance

of families as agents of emotional support and transmitters of cultural capital has

increased. On the other hand, these transformations have reduced the pressure

for the maintenance solely of a legal, conjugal link. In a way, it is not just that the

power of economic structure is to shape family practices has changed, but that the

ways people live and how they make their living (as well as who makes that living)

have also shaped economic and social structures. Thus we have come to transcend

the old sociological presumption that the institution of the family changes only in a

response to primary changes in the economic sphere. Now we are more inclined to

look for the interplay between sections of the labour market or welfare and

changing forms of intimacy.

In sum, no universal definition of the family exists, but rather many appropriate

definitions do (Petzold 1998; Haralambos and Heald, 2001; Schaefer, 2005).

Definitions are not only racially and inter-generationally diverse (Bedford and

16
Blieszner 2000), but are also situationally diverse (Haralambos and Heald, 2001;

Schaefer, 2005).

In all of the complexity of defining family, however, there is a strong emerging

theme within the scientific community that is based on evidence. Variations in

family form and process are extremely prevalent but must also acknowledge the

dominant structures by which cultures define family. In contrast to the reactionary

themes of the 1960s and 1970s to "traditional family," it has been observed that

there is more openness to family diversity in recent literature. The traditional

African Family is a concept with challenging variations. These diversities are caused

by differences in customs, geography, history, religion, external influence of

colonialism, migration, political and economic structures and influences.

3. Functions/Structure of Families

Sociologists have catalogued many functions that the families perform. These have

been put in six jackets. According to (Ogburn and Tibbits, 1934, cited in Schaefer,

2005: 127), the families have six paramount functions. These include reproduction

of new members; protection of new and old members and economic security for all;

socialization through which parents transmit mores, folkways, norms and values

including appropriate language of the society to the family members, regulation of

sexual behaviour: whom to marry, whom to have coital activity with and not, incest

taboos, among others; provision of affection and companionship to members wherein

warmth and intimacy should ideally rein and lastly where social status is conferred

by ascription and influences the achieved status.

In many traditional African societies, parents especially mothers had the primary

responsibility for teaching their children certain moral standard of behaviour

during socialization. In general, children were taught what was expected of them at

various stages of their lives. They were taught the community’s customs, values and

17
norms that accompany these roles (Muganzi 1987; Kisembo et al. 1977). Among

other traditional ethical values, the youth were taught personal discipline, told to

exercise a great deal of self-control and shown how to grow up into responsible and

productive members of society. They were also made to learn through proverbs and

folktales by older women that as children they are supposed to respect their

parents, elders and themselves, to take their advice and guidance seriously. They

also learnt the adverse consequences of violating such moral rules (Kilbride and

Kilbride 1990; Nasimiyu-Wasike 1992). Many mothers also ensure that their

children are enrolled in good schools and receive quality education. This

responsibility is an important part of parenting and for many poor women is often

undertaken with great personal sacrifices. This role indubitably is being supplanted.

Among the Luo of western Kenya, for example, young girls were taught by their

grandmothers and aunts how to sit down in a proper and decent manner (with their

legs together) to avoid possible temptation on the part of boys. They also receive

advice on how to relate to men (Wachege 1994:83). Their mothers also educated

them about sexuality, including the point that sexual relationships should be

restricted to marriage partners. The Tharaka girls in Kenya were given special

chains by their mothers to wear around their waist for as long as they remained

virgins before marriage. It was a taboo to keep the chain if a girl had lost her

virginity before she got married (Kalule 1986). In Nigeria, a full calabash is carried

by older women around the village if the bride is met intact whereas an empty one

is conveyed if the girl has been deflowered before the wedding. This kind of moral

and ethical education was most effective under a system of strong parental

authority which is now being systematically eroded, partly as a result of moral

delocalization and other forces of modernization.

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As part of their encounter with domesticity, Mack (1992) reports that Hausa wives

not only regularly involve in adjudicating disputes between their children but were

also frequently consulted over their husbands’ and children’s marriage

arrangements. As mothers, wives and professionals, Hausa women’s domestic roles

had a profound influence on socio-religious conduct in the family and society.

In his investigations about public perceptions of single mothers in Kenya, Wachege

(1994) shows that in every ethnic community in Kenya, mothers had the primary

responsibility to ensure that their daughters maintained sexual purity. Adolescence

girls were advised to uphold sexual morality until they got married and were ready

to raise family. Such advice was based on the moral premise that sexual morality in

general and pre-marital virginity in particular were highly valued, whereas single

motherhood was viewed as immoral and brought disgrace not only on the girl but on

her family and community as a whole. Having a child out of wedlock was stigmatized

and it lowered the dignity not only for the girl, who was perceived to be ‘morally

loose’, but also of the mother, who was blamed for not having taught her daughter

good conduct. In his discussion on how traditional Kikuyu women contributed to

moral uprightness in society and shared the blame with their daughters who had

children out of wedlock, Wachege says:

The main responsibility for instilling such moral conduct fell heavily on the

mothers. No wonder that when a child is conceived out of wedlock, her

mother too was answerable. Both were looked upon with contempt. Both were

disgraced. The mother suffered disgrace through her unmarried pregnant

daughter (1994:91)

In most traditional African societies, such girls have difficulty getting young men

to marry them. They were often married to older men as junior wives. Adherence to

these and other ethical standards, which were part of the society’s value system,

19
accounted for the rarity of pre-marital pregnancies and single motherhood in

traditional Africa.

Today, these moral standards are being swept away or distorted by the

modernization process, resulting in a moral vacuum and the breakdown of family

life. Pre-marital pregnancies and divorce are rampant in contemporary Africa and

public perceptions of them have changed drastically. This has also been a

proliferation of single mothers. At the same time, most modern Africa families,

including poor single-parent families, are becoming increasingly unable to provide

adequate care and support for their members. The result has been premarital

pregnancies, child abuse and neglect, increased numbers of street children,

prostitution, and a tendency towards marital infidelity. Kilbride and Kilbride

(1990:137) assert that in societies where collective rather than individual moral

responsibilities are emphasized child abuse can be greatly reduced or eliminated

altogether.

3.1 Baganda Patrilineal Family System.

In the late and early 19th century, a detailed study conducted among the Baganda in

Uganda, found that, “Polygyny, the type of marriage in which the husband has plural

wives, is not the only preferred but the dominant form of marriage for the

Baganda”. Commoners had two or three, chiefs had dozens, and the Kings had

hundreds of wives. What was the structure of the polygynous family?

Although among the Baganda, the nuclear family of the mother, father, and their

children constitutes the smallest unit of Baganda kinship system, the traditional

family consists of ….. several nuclear units held in association by a common father. “

Because the Baganda people are patrilineal, the household family also includes other

relatives of the father such as younger unmarried or widowed sisters, aged

20
parents, and children of the father’s clan sent to be brought up by him. Include in

this same bigger household will be servants, female slaves, and their children. The

father remains the head of the nuclear family units.

The Baganda are also patrilocal. Therefore, the new families tend to generally live

near or with the husband’s parents.

3.1.1 Kinship and Clan

The Baganda use “classificatory” system of kinship terminology which seems

common to virtually all the Bantu peoples of Central and Southern Africa. Similar

systems of kinship terminology can be found, for example, among the Ndebele of

Zimbabwe, the Zulu of South Africa, the Ngoni and Tumbuka of Eastern Zambia.

In this system, all brothers of the father are called “father”; all sisters of the

mother are called “mother”; all their children “brother and sister”. In male-speaking

terms, father’s sister’s daughters (cross-cousins) are called cousins. But they are

terminologically differentiated from parallel cousins and from sisters. A total of 68

linguistic terms of relationships are used by the Baganda.

The Baganda have a very important kinship entity. The clan is linked by four

factors. First, two animal totems from one of which the clan derives its name.

Second, an identifying drum beat used at ceremonies. Third, certain distinguished

personal names. Fourth, special observation related to pregnancy, childbirth, naming

of the child, and testing the child’s legitimacy as clan member.

The existence of patriarchy and the patrilineal system among the Baganda might

suggest that individual men have the most dominant social status. But quite to the

contrary, the clan seems to have a more supreme influence. For example, when a

man dies among the Baganda, his power over the property ends. The clan chooses

21
their heir. “The clan assumes control of inheritance; the wishes of the dead person

may or may not be honoured. …… The eldest son cannot inherit”. The Baganda

practice the levirate custom. The man who is the heir to the widow has the

additional family responsibility of adopting the widow’s family. He …. “also adopts

the deceased person children, calling them his and making no distinction between

them and his own children”.

3.2 Matrilineal Traditional African Family

According to Kilbride and Kilbride, (1990), among the Bemba people of Northern

Zambia, marriage is matrilocal. This may mean a man going to live in his wife’s village

for the first year in married life. This is also true of marriage among other

Zambians ethnic groups such as the Bisa, Lala, Lamba, Kaonde, and many others.

Among the Chewa of Eastern Zambia, the custom of man living with his wife’s

parents temporarily or permanently was known as Ukamwini.

During the period earlier than 1940s, marriages remained completely matrilocal

during the couple’s entire life. But however, after a few years of contact with white

civilization and subsequent social change, the custom has gradually changed. The

husband could take his wife home if the marriage was thought stable especially

after the couple has had two or more children.

The basic family unit among the Bemba was not the nuclear family. But rather the

matrilocal extended family comprised of a man and his wife, their married

daughter, son-in-laws, and their children. “The basic kinship unit of Bemba society

is not the individual family, but a matrilocal extended family composed of a man and

his wife, their married daughters, and the latter’s husbands and children”.

22
A young Bemba lives in the same hut with a child of pre-weaning age whom they may

have. But this is not an independent nuclear family unit. The man or bridegroom “….

builds himself a house at his wife’s village and becomes a member of her extended

family group”. The wife cooks at her mother’s house with other female relatives

who are mainly unmarried and married sisters. Polygyny, which is a distinguishing

feature in many traditional African family especially is patrilineal and patriarchal

societies, is uncommon among the matrilineal Bemba. Whereas chiefs have a number

of wives, it is very rare to find ordinary men who have more than one wife. Because

of this, extended families among the Bemba are not really as large as those found,

especially among patriarchal polygynous traditional families in other ethnic groups

as in Southern, Eastern, or West Africa” (Kilbride and Kilbride, 1990).

3.2.1 Kinship and Clan

The Bemba’s kinship is anchored on matrilineal descent. This arrangement obtains

among other Zambian ethnic groups such as the Bisa, Lamba, Lala, Chewa, Koande,

Luba, and others. A man’s legal entitlements and rights of inheritance are on his

mother’s side. He has no right on his paternal clan. “A Bemba belongs to his

mother’s clan (umukoa), a group of relatives more or less distantly connected, who

reckon descent from real or fictitious common ancestries, use a common totem

name, and a series of praise titles, recite a common legend of origin and accept

certain joint obligations” (Kilbride and Kilbride, 1990).

3.3 How can family stability be viewed?

This can be operationally defined in terms of factors related to family structure

and functions and processes at least in a functionalist sense for instance that

support healthy child development, parental mental health, stable relationships

between spouses, positive parenting, warm home environment, emotional availability,

23
stimulation, family cohesion where the care and sharing of love are consistent,

constant and commitment can be discerned, and where cohesive and supportive bond

to each to each other can be demonstrated. Family ties are important sources of

existential meaning which provide life satisfaction and happiness. The quality of

family relationships contributes to individual well being and there is an empirical

linkage between relationship quality and individual outcomes. What parents do with

and for their children, the material they provide, the warmth they display, the

discipline they instill, the attention they give or fail to give and the investment in

terms of energy and time they made in the children are reflected in better

outcomes on children. It has been said that when occupational and economic

stressors cause parents to be more distant, preoccupied or impatient with their

spouses and their children, family instability is brooding. This portends

disappointment, turmoil and anxiety which may engender family instability. Research

has found that family stability can have positive impacts on a child’s health

behaviours and outcomes, academic performance and achievement, social skills

development and emotional functioning (Tinsley and Lees, 1995; Hickson and

Clayton, 1995; Lawrence, et al; 2002).

Similarly, it is clear that disappointing, distant and conflict-ridden relationships

between spouses exert a powerful emotional toll on both spouses and children and

subsequent relationships. Badru (2004a)’s study has found out some socio-economic

determinants and patterns of spousal abuse in his doctoral work. He asserted that

spousal abuse and specifically wife battering is more likely in the early period of

marriage when adjustment problems tend to be prominent. Those people who live

very close to army cantonment and possibly witness or socialized by constant

discharge of war missile are more likely to engage in marital conflict. He found out

that abuse was more common in the high density, low-income areas where poverty

24
and unemployment stare virtually everybody in the face; it is also not unusual for

the highly educated to thrash their wife for patriarchal and cultural reasons.

3.4 Indicators of Unstable Families in Contemporary Times

Why is it that some career women find it difficult to establish or maintain a home

rather than a house (empty shell family)? What propel some men to decline in

dating or marrying nurses who do night shift? What impel some career women to

marry younger men? Do they use money to entice the latter? Who is the bread

winner; who is the ‘bread eater’ here? Who should be the head of the family? Is

the family equalitarian or skewed to one partner? Has it not been said that he/she

who pays the piper dictates the tune? Can the women in such relationship submit to

the man, who is younger and somehow dependent financially on the wife? Can this

not bring its strain and conflict? Are female bankers not too engrossed in their

career at the expense of the family? Is the courtship long enough to know each

other’s compatibility? Is it not instrumental relationship? Is this responsible for

increase in broken homes? Where both spouses work from morning till night, how do

they care for their kids? Do we share quality time with our family members? When

last did I or you take your partners out for lunch? Do we not carry stress from

work home? Who plays the expressive role: comfort? Are our friends outside or at

home? The answers to these puzzles throw several varying weights on relationships

and stability within families, workplace and society. What have these got to do with

increasing divorce rates, juvenile delinquency, area boys and girls phenomena in our

society?

Statistics tell us that first marriages today stand a 45 percent chance of breaking

up and second marriages a 60 percent chance. But those numbers just confirm what

we already knew: Divorce has increased not only in frequency but also in acceptance.

And even if we don’t focus on figures per se, we know that today far more

25
marriages end in divorce than a couple of decades ago across the continents of the

world.

This represents a massive social change. It has taken place in the relatively short

space of time and is reshaping the basic building block of society. Divorce is

altering the institution of marriage and family stabilty in ways not yet fully

comprehended. However, enough is understood to allow experts in the field to state

that increased tolerance of divorce has produced profound changes in our attitudes

toward what we think marriage and family ought to be.

But regardless of what the institution used to represent, it is well documented that

the traditional roles of men and women changed greatly with industrialization and

urbanization in the 20th century. Additionally, World War II drew women into the

workplace to replace the men who had gone to the war front; new birth control

methods gave women control over fertility; and in general, women gained greater

decision-making ability in family matters as they worked outside the home. The

momentum was accelerated by various social movements with civil-rights, feminist

and human-potential agendas. Gadgets have simplified the domestic drudgery.

Adults, in their eagerness to reduce difficult situations for themselves, convinced

themselves that the children would be happier if the parents were happier. They

also argued that divorce is a temporary crisis, with most of the harm being done

around the time of the initial separation, and that with time children would adjust

if the parents “worked things out” amicably.

Both assumptions, however, are being seriously disputed today. Scholars believe

that “cumulative stress as new parents move in and out of a child’s life seems to be

affecting his marital history as an adult.” Wallerstein is even more forceful

regarding the effects of divorce on children: “Divorce is a life-transforming

experience. After divorce, childhood is different. Adolescence is different.

26
Adulthood—with the decision to marry or not and have children or not—is

different. Whether the final outcome is good or bad, the whole trajectory of an

individual’s life is profoundly altered by the divorce experience.”

4. Concluding Remarks

It is high time stable families were rebuilt in our continent. All the barriers must

be consciously removed and resocialisation should take place where we promote our

cultural heritage that is not inimical to our social development. Granted that

societal changes brought freedoms that previous generations did not have, the

alteration should not be allowed to swallow us and make us lose our sense of

Africanness.. The commitment to stay in a marriage in order to make it work gave

way to an attitude of moving on if the marriage was in difficulty. Where there are

disputes, a reconciliation team is constituted by members of older extended

families to nip any untold problem in the bud. But wait a minute, listen to divine

admonition: In Malachi 2:16, we are told that God hates divorce. A natural question

would be: Why? Marriage is a covenant. It is not independent of God. He is a

witness to the agreement: “Because the Lord has been witness between you and the

wife of your youth, with whom you have dealt treacherously; yet she is your

companion and your wife by covenant”. A marriage embarked upon in youth is

intended to remain into old age. This passage also says that the wife is not inferior

but is a companion in whom the husband should take delight. (see also: Genesis

2:24; Matthew 19:5; Malachi 2:15–16).

Mary Hirschfeld, in her Adult Children of Divorce Workbook, states: “There is

nothing that hurts more than the wound that is meted out by the most important

people in our childhood, our mother and father, because it violates the promise,

implicit to life itself, to provide continuous safety and care. It is argued that most

human beings unconsciously believe that a mother and father, when they create a

27
life, enter into a tacit agreement to continue the family as a unit and to be present

to guide the children until they can claim the world as adults. When parents do this

. . . it nourishes trust and allows the children to build a healthy foundation for all of

life’s tasks.” It is the contention of this paper that families in Africa has cushion to

facilitate this and avoid or reduce to the barest minimum factors that may inhibit

the stability of families.

I fully share the sentiment of Brian Orhard who asserts that “the fracturing and

destabilizing of our society will continue as the “culture of divorce” exacts its toll.

Divorce is changing the basic nature of marriage, and unless the trend is stopped

and our hearts are turned to each other and to our children, this “new kind of

society” is in danger.

What we must do is to reverse the trend family by family. Divorce has to become a

rarity. It is imperative that all hands should be put on desk to live a good live by

having healthy relationships that foster happiness, comfort and tranquility at home;

that can engender harmonious relationships at work and bring about piece and order

in society. Family stability is desirable and we need to rebuild a sound, strong,

united and stable families in our societies.

28
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