“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 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

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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 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

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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 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,

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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.

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.

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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.

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

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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 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

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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 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.

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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).

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

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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 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.

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

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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 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.

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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 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.

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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 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

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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 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

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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 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

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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.

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)

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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, 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 parents, and children of the father’s clan sent to be

brought up by him. Include in this same bigger household will be servants,

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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 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

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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”.

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

20

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, 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,

21

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 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

22

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 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.

23

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. 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

24

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 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.

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