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Content of Lecture

• Focuses on African Family Structures and kinship
• Focuses on the Types of family
• Analyses whether the African Family is a Hindrance or a Blessing for Development
• Focuses on Family Ideology and Business management
• Property Devolution & laws of intestate succession are discussed.
• Touches on other related matters

Readings

• Fortes M wrote 'The Family: Bane or Blessing?'
• Azu, Diana G wrote The Ga family and Social Change
• Nukunya G. K. wrote Kinship and Marriage Among the Anlo Ewe
• Awedoba A. K. wrote Culture & Development

Defining the African Family

• A group of people related through perceived 'blood' ties, marriage or by adoption.
• Members identify with each other and may or may not live together
• May cooperate on regular/irregular basis
• Could share collective interests & sentiments

Characteristics

• Morality imposes reciprocity, sharing, and caring for one another, plus loyalty & commitment to members.
• The closer the kinship bond, the greater the commitment and the higher the degree of reciprocity expected
• Africans tend to value and boast about their family

Remarks on its importance

• Family is a foundation of society & culture
• Individuals are born into a family, grow up within a family and are socialized into responsible members of society
• Africans still value their family, as demonstrated through newspaper obituaries and transporting bodies for burial in family burial grounds.
• Attachment to the family accounts for many societal and individual behaviors and attitudes.

Perceptions of the African Family

• African & European notions of family are often compared
• Some view the African family as a hindrance to development, while others see it as a blessing and asset
• Like most social institutions, the family has both positive and negative aspects, providing choices but also denying them.
• Undesirable features can be dealt with by rejecting or modifying the negative aspects
• Culture is not sacrosanct and can be changed

Manifestations of Family in Africa

• Extended family
• Lineage, Clan
• Conjugal family, nuclear family, simple family
• Compound family
• Family of procreation
• Family of orientation
• One-parent family
• Matrifocal family

The Nuclear/Conjugal Family

• Exists because of marriage
• Comprises husband & wife and their children, if any
• Orientation family from the perspective of the children being raised includes parents & siblings (excluding spouses & kids).
• Family of procreation from the perspective of the parents includes spouse and children.
• An African man with more than one wife has a family of procreation that is a compound family, though his Fam. of O may be a simple one.

The Extended Family

• A network of relatives on the father or mother's side, or both, including kin acquired through marriage and adoption
• Can be large, may or may not be formally constituted, and may or may not have a name
• Membership may be open-ended rather than strictly defined but may never meet in one spot as a body.
• Often lacks a corporate identity, unlike other types of family.
• Size and membership might depend on the status and influence of the individual at the network's center

Ashanti Extended Family Example

• Example demographics for an 81 yr. old Ashanti extended family are chief mourners (27), widow (1), children (5), grandchildren (24), brothers and sisters (17), nephews and nieces (27), and in-laws (20), totaling 121

The Lineage/Clan

• Importance is attached to tracing relationship [descent] ties through men or women to a common ancestor/ancestress.
• Socially recognized groups of kin are constituted; thus members claim either a common ancestor or ancestress.
• Ties are traced consistently either through mothers or fathers, depending on the society.
• Recognized kin groups emerge
• The technical term for this kin group is lineage
• A clan is a large lineage with dispersed membership and may have lineages within it.

Features of the Lineage

• Lineages are more or less corporate, with collective or joint interests and rights.
• Some communities are segmented into lineages
• A lineage may have a name and a head (male / female) who administers its affairs
• It may own property or have joint claims to assets or position/office such as that of chief.
• Lineage membership may meet periodically to conduct affairs, and it can be a ritual congregation with rites, appellations, totems, taboos, etc.
• Lineages defend themselves & their rights against encroachment by the rest of the world.

Matrilineage

• Akan people call lineage abusua, which is matrilineage
• Abusua membership includes one's siblings, mother, MM, M-siblings, sister's children and one's own children if one is female.
• It excludes spouses fathers & their siblings, and one's children if one is male.
• Descent is claimed through women, such as Mother, MM, MMM, etc., but not through men
• Societies that have such family groups are described as matrilineal
• Other matrilineal African peoples include - Yao (Malawi), Bemba (Zambia), Lele (Congo DR), Gouro (Cote d'Ivoire)

Patrilineage

• When kinship groups are formed based on ties traced through fathers/men, patrilineages result.
• A patrilineage may include a person, the siblings, the father, FF, F-siblings, and children of males.
• Spouses are not core members, and the children of daughters may not be members.
• Societies that have large family units composed this way are patrilineal.
• Examples include the Konkomba, Frafra, Ewe, Ga Yoruba, and Maasai.

The African Family vs. The Western Family

• The African is more inclusive & demographically larger
• The African family is collective and lends itself to projection over the wider community, making the community in some senses the family writ large
• 'Father' is not only the biological father but also his brothers and father's sisters, and indeed people of father's generation
• Traditional African nuclear family lacks the autonomy the Western family enjoys
• Uncles, aunts, and grandparents continue to have a say in the affairs of the nuclear family in many parts of Africa, even today.

African Family Characteristics II

• Strong & long-lasting parent-child bonds
• Strong and lasting sibling-sibling bond
• Strong loyalty & commitment to family, even outweighing that to the state
• The African nuclear family lives and grows while the Western family withers with time
• African expectation is that parents fend for their children, and children, in turn, would take care of parents in the parents' old age
• African ideology emphasizes the family's political, economic, legal, social, and religious aspects

Inter-generational Reciprocities

• Reciprocities are material and non-material exchanges between parties, and they can be immediate or delayed.
• Akan saying: 'you look after a child to grow teeth so that he/she might look after you till you lose yours'

Implications of Collective Characters

• Provides social & psychological support / security in an increasingly individualistic world, as 'being your brother's keeper.'
• Can be the means for coping with misfortune, tragedy, vulnerabilities

Case of Orphans

• African Family ideology makes orphanages redundant because a minor has several mothers & fathers, and the African Family caters for the 'orphan'
• In the West, the state cares for orphans through orphanages, but as the African Family weakens, orphanages become necessary.

Abolish Orphanages

• Orphanaid Africa advocates for families to care for orphans instead of taking them to orphanages
• Government is urged to abolish orphanages, stating they are foreign to Ghanaian culture and have proven to be ineffective
• Call comes in the wake of grave abuses and crimes against children in three orphanages in Ghana.

Problems with Orphanages

• Orphanages detach children from society and make them lose self-confidence when they become adults
• Government can instead create foster homes, children residential homes, temporary placements and transit points for orphans to be restored to their extended families or to foster families

Means For Addressing Social Inequalities

• Family compels the well-to-do to share with the less well off
• Via the African family, resources may flow from wealthier settings to deprived settings [Urban → Rural; Western world → Africa].
• This is the basis for making claims on the well-off

Exchange Flows

• Total private money transfers to Ghana for Jan-May 2011 were $4.2 billion
• Remittances to the Sub-Saharan Africa possibly reach $US24 billion by 2012
• Remittances go directly to households, greatly impacting poverty reduction, funding housing and education, basic needs, and business investments.
• Nigeria is the top remittance recipient in Africa

Implications: The Under Side

• The African notion of family prioritizes numbers leading to Large Family Sizes:
• Potentially High Dependency Ratio - Multiple demands on the well-to-do salaried adult
• Lack of autonomy for the nuclear family because of involvement of kin in management of individual's family. Can undermine conjugal life
• Strong Loyalty can lead to nepotism & corruption and undermine patriotism and national cohesion

Nepotism & Business Management

• Strong Family Loyalty leads to nepotism and corruption, and when family interests clash with official & national demands, office and country are losers.
• Embezzlement & misallocations can result
• Family/ethnic mates are privileged in decision-making and allocation of public resources
• Kinship requirements can undermine Bureaucratic norms in the work place
• Inordinate respect for age can undermine work discipline, and traditional statuses can also affect the exercise of authority in the workplace

Case of Ephemeral Businesses

• Kinship norms are ambivalent about successors, so some successful businesses do not out-live their originators because of family bickering about who should succeed
• Entrepreneurs' children may be sidestepped in the choice of heir, and successors mismanage and kill ventures

Family: Potential Business Asset

• Family can promote business and family norms are family norms of: trust, accountability, goodwill, and reciprocity.
• The family is means for pooling capital resources to establish and manage businesses and the trust that relatives have in each other is an asset to business establishment.
• History provides examples of how family and family ideology have accounted for successful business ventures

Concepts of Property

• Property is anything owned or can be possessed, and it may be tangible or intangible:
• Tangible includes material objects: livestock, landed property, tolls, utensils, and cash
• Tangible includes Persons - spouses, children, and relatives
• Property may be non-material items, such as songs, dances, ritual capacities, divinatory expertise, therapeutic skills or some idea that has been invented or coined
• Property includes an office, status or roles, such as chieftaincy, priesthood, or even a good name

Family: Transmission of Resources

• Inheritance & succession is governed by Norms and Laws
• The family is often a property-holding unit, which can impact conflicts and peace.
• Societies have rules prescribing how property, whether joint or private property, should be accessed, used or distributed.
• There are concerns that individual rights, such as children's and women's rights, are sometimes infringed by traditional inheritance & succession rules

Property Ownerships

• Joint Property: Collectively owned and vested in chiefs/ancestors, and administered by the head of family or clan
• Group members may have access to such property, but they may not alienate it without authority
  • Land is an Example
• Self acquired property: is available to the individual to use as he/she likes and may dispose of as he/she sees fit
• May become be joint property after death; the lineage collectively, or family may claim it
• An heir then is prescribed from the kin to take possession. Invariably, the inheritor is a member of the lineage

Inheritance Exclusions

• Widows in patrilineal societies do not inherit and depend on their children to provide for them
• If they have no sons, then they could suffer deprivation, especially in old age.
• Daughters are not regular inheritors and allowing them to inherit the deceased father's property could alienate lineage property, as the husband is often an outsider
• Women may or may not inherit even women's property.

Botswana Women Win Right to Inherit

• The Botswana High Court in 2012 overturned a customary law which prevented women from inheriting the family home
• Edith Mmusi and her sisters fought a five-year legal battle after their nephew said he was the rightful owner of their house
• In Zimbabwe the death of husbands can subject women to poverty
• In the Dinka tribe in South Sudan , property is inherited by the older son or the sons of daughters' uncle (their father's brother); Women don't own properties in Dinka Bor culture.

Matrilineal Inheritance

• The next of kin (for inheritance) among matrilineal Akans include brothers /sisters of the deceased; sister's children (nephews/nieces); and some other member of the lineage
• Traditionally, the lineage could select an heir to inherit the property of the deceased, but these norms are changing
  • This includes both assets and liabilities

Exclusions in Matrilineal Systems

• Children do not automatically inherit their deceased father's property because they are not seen as members of the father's lineage Widows/widowers do not automatically inherit the deceased spouse's property
• The father cannot inherit the children's property since he is from a different -lineage
• Laws become necessary to address injustices when individual rights are undermined

Nuclear Family vs. Lineage

• In Lineal societies where exogamy obtains, the members of the conjugal family do not all belong to one lineage
• Thus conflict can be ruled out between conjugal family & lineage and may center on factors like loyalty and commitment or property rights

PNDCL 111 Law

• INTESTATE SUCCESSION LAW in 1985 comes to the rescue of the nuclear family so that widows' and orphans' property rights are not abused
• In the case where the estate includes only one house, the surviving spouse or child or both of them shall be entitled to that house
• In the case where the estate includes more than one house, the surviving spouse or child or both of them shall determine which house devolves to who
• 3/16 of the estate goes to the surviving spouse.
• 9/16 the surviving children take their share.
• Surviving parents take one-eighth of the deceased's estate.
• Distribute the remaining one-eighth of the estate in accordance with the customs of the people
• If there is no surviving parent, then 4/16 of the estate should be distributed by customary law 3
• If the deceased is not survived by a spouse ³/₄ (12/16) of the estate goes to children 3
• If there is not surviving spouse nor orphans, then the surviving parents' share increases to ³/₄ (12/16)
• This law applies where a person dies intestate, and applies to all Ghanaians regardless of whether it is matri- or patri-lineal
• The law makes a large bulk of the father's estate go to the surviving children and the widow
• Husbands (widowers) can claim significant portions of their deceased wives' and children's estates
• The surviving parent who would otherwise have to be cared for by his/her children gets a share of the deceased child's estate