Social Dynamics of Adolescent Fertility in Sub-Saharan Africa (1993) / Chapter Skim
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3 MARRIAGE: NEW FORMS, NEW AMBIGUITIES
3 MARRIAGE: NEW FORMS, NEW AMBIGUITIES
Pages 37-68
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From page 37... ...
But, although it may hold elsewhere, this relationship is quite tenuous in sub-Saharan Africa, in both rural and urban settings (see also Gyepi-Garbrah, 1985a) .i Although we have presented evidence that suggests that the age at marriage is rising, understanding the economic and social dynamics of entry into marriage is essential to the study of adolescent fertility.
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From page 38... ...
This chapter shows that the ambiguities in marriage leave considerable room for disputing marital status. When young women have few alternatives to immediate marriage and childbearing, becoming pregnant at the outset of a union, whether or not it is called a marriage, is likely to be highly welcome.
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From page 39... ...
Along the coast of western Africa, families offer drinks and Lola nuts as a significant celebratory feature of customary marriage a symbol of recognition by the families of the union. Examples come from the Akan of Ghana (Oppong, 1974)
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From page 40... ...
Not surprisingly, as they grow older and gain junior wives of their own, their opinions of Polygyny often Improve. Polygyny is more common in western Africa than in eastern or southern Africa, although about 15 to 30 percent of married men are polygynists in Kenya and Tanzania (Lesthaeghe et al., 1989~.
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From page 41... ...
In Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, and Togo over 30 percent of currently married women in this age range are in polygynous unions. Young women with no education are much more likely to be married to polygynists than are those with secondary or higher education.
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From page 42... ...
the largest difference: 36 percent of young rural women are in polygynous marriages, compared with 24 percent of urban ones. Polygyny affects male adolescents most directly through the age at first marriage.
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From page 43... ...
not to imply that the rules defining marriage are themselves ambiguous. The legal aspects of the marriage process may be quite straightforward, and the expectations and the appropriate behavior of each party clearly defined.
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From page 44... ...
It is important to recognize that while these types of marriages are good illustrations of the flexibility of African marriage customs, either they represent minor themes in the marriage system of most African societies, or they are practiced by very small groups. However, faced with this multiplicity of marriage customs, many surveys in Africa have relied on the marital status women report, recognizing that different definitions of marriage can produce enormous variations in reports of age at first marriage.
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From page 45... ...
Almost without exception, the WFS and DHS treated the beginning of marriage as a discrete event, and hence a person as either married or unmarried, a strategy that has obvious measurement advantages. Yet the boundaries between the two may be blurred in the many African societies that treat marriage as a process that evolves over months or even years through a sequence of events.
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From page 46... ...
(Because surveys typically look at only one slice in time, it is difficult to appreciate that consensual unions often become stages toward more formalized ones. Using these same data, Brandon, 1990, found that 65 percent of all consensual unions are terminated or transformed by the fifth year; 42 percent become formal unions, and only 23 percent are dissolved.)
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From page 47... ...
For a number of reasons, then, using-fixed criteria to measure change in marriage, whether from retrospective or time-series data, is inherently fraught with problems. EFFECTS OF AMBIGUOUS MARITAL STATUS ON LEGITIMATE REPRODUCTION These difficulties in identifying and measuring marriage have obvious bearing on how births are perceived and counted.
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From page 48... ...
Second, that marriage is fluid in nature suggests that a "premarital" birth one that precedes the conclusion of the marriage process is by no means the same thing as an illegitimate birth. No one can deny the implications of legitimacy; but legitimacy refers less to a birth after marriage than to a man's willingness to assume the social and economic responsibilities of fatherhood.
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From page 49... ...
CHANGES IN MARRIAGE IN CONTEMPORARY AFRICA Vast changes in legal codes, educational opportunities, and avenues for employment, as well as the advent of new theologies, have not simplified the marriage process in Africa. Indeed, they have added elements that make it even more complex.
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From page 50... ...
DHS findings from Ondo State, Nigeria, and from western Kenya, two of the areas of highest population density in the subcontinent, suggest that the implications of population pressure for age at first marriage are far from clear. Even where we find an association between marriage age and population density, the causation may be unclear.
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From page 51... ...
Anart from population density and the land base, the economic issue ``,ith ln~x'Pr fertility the. effect mav be indirect: that looms large for age at marriage in Africa is the material resources that allow a young man to marry in a socially acceptable way.
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From page 52... ...
In considering the effects of economic forces on marriage, the case of labor migration in southern Africa looms large, whether we view it as a response to shrinking land supply or to scarce bridewealth resources. Gulbrandsen (1986)
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From page 53... ...
1 · . 1 _ _ ~ 1~ wanted arranged marriages primarily by establishing a minimum legal age at marriage and abolishing child marriage for girls (Omideyi, 1983; Segamba et al., 1988~.
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From page 54... ...
. minimum age of marriage for women varies enormously according to major administrative divisions, or religious or ethnic groups.
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From page 55... ...
The minimum age of marriage is set very high, at 21 for both parties, but the code provides that this requirement can be set aside "for serious reasons" (Annual Review of Population Law, 19881. In countries with no national legislation on minimum age, the question is left to the customary courts.
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From page 56... ...
According to the Cameroon Fertility Survey of 1978, part of the World Fertility Survey, 8 percent of urban women and 25 percent of rural women were married before the minimum legal age of 15 years (United Nations, 1989~. And although the minimum age in Cole d'Ivoire is 18 years, data from the WFS of 1980-1981 showed that 40.9 percent of urban women and 42.6 percent of rural women were married before 18.
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From page 57... ...
Whereas in most other southern African countries women must marry in order to obtain access to property, in Botswana unmarried women have the same legal rights to property, credit, and business rights as do married men. This legal advantage, conferred after independence in 1966, benefits rural women with respect to rights in farm land; it also helps urban women who seek to acquire plots to build or to buy houses for rental income or self-employment activities.
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From page 58... ...
The marriage process lasts a considerable time. The groom takes a year or two to amass wedding gifts, less for the parents, the typical pattern, than for the bride.
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From page 59... ...
59 tween Muslim and non-Muslim populations in the same province may be small, perhaps because the conservative nature of predominantly Muslim areas affects ages at marriage of both populations. In Ondo State, for example, ages at first marriage for Muslim and Protestant women aged 2529 are almost identical at 19.7 and 19.8 years, respectively (Medical/Preventive Health Division, Ondo State and Institute for Resource Development, 1989~.
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From page 60... ...
Even so, few women report having had a premarital birth (see Table 2-10) , and fewer reported premarital sexuality than in any other country except Mali (see discussion below concerning Table 3-7~.
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From page 61... ...
Greater education is also generally associated with more reported premarital sexual activity, as Table 3-7 shows. Exceptions include Ghana and Mali, with little differences in premarital activity between uneducated women and those with primary schooling, and Botswana and Kenya, with little difference between women with primary and with secondary education.
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From page 62... ...
TABLE 3-7 Percentage of Women Aged 20-24 Who Engaged in Premarital Sex During Their Teenage Years, by Highest Level of Education Attained, Selected Sub-Saharan African Countries Highest Level of Education Attained Secondary AllSample Country None Primaryor Higher WomenSize Botswana 67 8185 80924 Burundi 38 4456 40779 Ghana 62 6574 65867 Kenya 47 6673 671,315 Liberia 61 6781 681,009 Mali 15 14a 15527 Nigeria 8 2139 181,357 Togo 65 7089 71661 Uganda 51 6175 60985 Zimbabwe 42 4959 53837 aFewer than 25 cases. SOURCE: Demographic and Health Surveys Standard Recode Files, weighted data
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From page 63... ...
Although place of residence is strongly associated with age at marriage, its association with premarital sexual activity is much less clear (see Table 3-9~. In Burundi, Liberia, Nigeria, and Uganda young urban women were much more likely to have engaged in premarital sex than rural women.
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From page 64... ...
TABLE 3-9 Percentage of Women Aged 20-24 Who Engaged in Premarital Sex During Their Teenage Years, by Place of Residence Type of Residence Absolute Difference Urban Rural (percentage points) Sample Countrya (1)
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From page 65... ...
The constant incorporation of new symbols that legitimize marriage and the invocation of new legal and religious codes deepen the inherent ambiguities in marital status. They also create more potential for drawing out the marriage process and for testing out multiple partners before marriage.
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From page 66... ...
In Freetown, Sierra Leone, uneducated women are likely to report themselves fully married after customary marriage rites have been performed. But better-educated women are more likely to report being single or "engaged" if they have had no civil or religious ceremony.
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From page 67... ...
Elite men can use this ambiguity in court cases either to deny the responsibilities associated with paternity or to sue other men for "adultery" damages. Western Kenya presents an archetypal case of the combined dynamic of ranking and marginalization, whereby some low-status women are demoted in multiple-partner unions and others are kept in a remote holding pattern of the marriage process.
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From page 68... ...
To be sure, for many of these women, becoming an outside wife is a significant move up the social mobility scale. But the fact remains that women who are acknowledged as "official" wives enjoy relative security within the conjugal unit, whereas lower-status women find themselves stalled as outside wives in a remote orbit of the marital process by men who must .
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