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Does matrilineal kinship weaken themarital bond? Evidence from Ghana
Stephen Obeng Gyimah, PhDDepartment of Sociology
Queens University
Kingston, Ontario
Baffour K. Takyi, PhD
Department of Sociology
University of Akron
Akron, Ohio
Prepared for presentation at the annual meetings of the Canadian Population Society, Winnipeg,June 2-5 2004.
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Research context
Theoretical formulations about family transitions, particularlymarital outcomes, in sub-Saharan Africa assume that thechanges underway in the region are the result of modernizingprocesses, particularly Africas encounter with the outsideworld due to its long history with European imperialism and
colonialism.
Yet still, others argue that the regions rapid rate ofurbanization, estimated at about 4.4 per cent per annum andchanges in womens economic position arising fromincreasing education may be the driving force behind the
fragmentation and changes that we are seeing in Africanfamilies.
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While a common theme behind recent scholarship on the
African family focuses on the role of social change in
explaining family transitions, few examine the potential
influence of internal processes within African societies and
their impact on family life.
In this paper, we examine the role of family ties (which we
define in terms of lineage or kinship allegiance) on the
duration of first marriages in Ghana.
Despite this growing research interest on the African family,surprisingly little of existing deals with marital stability and
dissolution .
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The limited research on marital disruption is that, until quite
recently, the focus of most African demographic researchers was
in explaining the regions high fertility levels that were viewed as
detrimental to socioeconomic developments.
Because of the interest on fertility-related issues, a sizable
amount of existing demographic studies on postcolonial Africa
investigate the determinants of high birth rates, and the conditions
under which a transition from high to low birth rate would occur in
the region.
Given the paucity of studies on marital instability, findings from our
study could provide insights into family dynamics and processes
in the sub-Saharan region.
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In exploring how family ties affect marital stability in the context of
Ghana, we are particularly interested in assessing a key
hypothesis that is derived from the institutional theoretical
framework that suggests that family ties, particularly matrilineal
ties, undermine the marital bond and thus, increase womens riskfor marital disruption (see e.g., Oppong, 1974; 1977; Poewe, 1978;
Hagan, 1983; Hutchison, 1990).
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Three main factors influenced our choice of Ghana as the setting fortesting our hypothesis. First, roughly half of Ghanas population iscomprised of the matrilineal Akan and the other half are non-matrilineal (Gaisie, 1981).
These two family arrangements serve as the basis of Ghanaiansocial organizations and are reproduced in succeeding generationsthrough carefully crafted socialization processes and systems ofrewards (Dodoo and Tempenis, 2000).
These differential rewards, expectations, and influence is likely tohave a differential impact on family dynamics in the country. This is
particularly the case in matrilineal societies where individuals tend todefer more to the preferences and needs of their lineage kin than innon-matrilineal settings.
Why Ghana?
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Second, evidence is emerging to indicate that a transformation isunderway in many African families (see e.g., Bledsoe, 1990; Lloydand Gage-Brandon, 1993).
With regard to Ghana, Amoateng and Heaton (1989) found women
who married in the 1970s to be twice as likely to report a divorce asthose who married in earlier decades. Lloyd and Gage-Brandon(1993), and Gage and Njogu (1994) have also reported that duringthe 1970s, about 40% of ever-married women between the ages of40-49 in Ghana reported a marital dissolution, with this figureincreasing to a high of 60.8% by the 1980s (Gage and Njogu 1994).
Despite these observations, researchers disagree on the forces thatare influencing these recent transitions in family life in Ghana.
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Another reason for using Ghana is that data from Demographic andHealth Surveys conducted in that country during the 1980s and1990s have measures that allow us to distinguish between the twopredominant family traditions and ties: matrilineal and non-matrilinealties for the study.
Using this categorization, we estimate hazard models to examine theduration of first marriage to address the question of whether womenfrom matrilineal family backgrounds experience more disruption thantheir non-matrilineal counterparts.
Because the disruptive-effect thesis is predicated on the assumption
that in matrilineal societies women tend to have more support andalso autonomy in their social relations than their non-matrilinealcounterparts (Clignet, 1970; Poewe, 1978; Takyi, 2001), wehypothesize that the risk of marital disruption will be greater amongmatrilineal than non-matrilineal women.
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Studies on marital stability have in the recent past explained thereported fragility of African marriages in terms of structural forces.
This thesis argues that social changes arising from what isconsidered as modernizing influences and the introduction of
Western ideas and norms into the region have something to do withrecent marital transitions (Kaufmann and Meekers, 1998; Takyi,2001; McDonald, 1985; Caldwell, 1982).
While acknowledging the possible influence of micro-level factorssuch as age at marriage, and increasing levels of womens educationon marital stability, the undue emphasis on structural forces ignore
the potential role of internal and institutional forces such as familyties that could potentially affect family and marital outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa.
Background
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The issue of whether kinship ties influence marital outcomes isimportant given the overwhelming influence of lineage or kinshipties in Africa.
Indeed, research from the region have increasingly pointed tothe saliency of lineal ties to our understanding of childbearing
and rearing patterns (Page, 1989), and overall reproductivebehavior (Caldwell, 1982; Lesthaeghe, 1984; Caldwell andCaldwell, 1987), and also divorce (Takyi, 2001).
In the context of West Africa, Caldwell (1995) also notes thatfamily members rarely leave the extended family, with womentraditionally worshipping in their households of origin even after
marriage.
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More importantly, women and their children tend to be acceptedreadily back into their families of origin if their marriages breakup, a practice that is common among matrilineal kin members.These dynamics, coupled with the ambiguous position of theconjugal family vis--vis lineal could affect intra-family relationswhich could contribute to the destabilization of the marital union.
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Three main mechanisms through which matrilineal family ties canaffect the stability of the conjugal unit.
1) under the matrilineal family system, married couples rarely pooltheir resources together for the benefit of the conjugal family unit(Oppong, 1983a, 1983b).
While feminists scholars would argue that such a practice providewomen with some level of autonomy from their spouses, the lack ofa joint account is consistent with the traditional belief under thematrilineal system (especially as practice in Ghana) that men andwomen should give priority to their matrilineal kin over their ownspouses (Clark (1999).
Takyi (2001) and Dodoo (1998) have argued that the practice ofmaintaining separate marital accounts, plus the spousal allegianceof the wife to her own maternal family of origin, could undermine theauthority of the husband, weaken and compromise the marital unit,and provide women and men with different cost and benefitscalculations, which could ultimately influence the wifes maritaldecisions.
Theoretical framework
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2. the second borrows its ideas from rationale choice theory(see e.g., Klein, 2002). Consistent with this view, it has beensuggested that the transactions that lead to the exchange ofresources between family members in the form of bridewealthpayments prior to the consummation of the union may influencethe wifes actions within the marriage.
3. The third is the status of women of matrilineal descent .Research on the status of women in the developing world havepointed to the dependency-relationship that arises betweencouples when the wife rely on the husband for financial support.
Under the matrilineal system of descent, family members are
guaranteed significant social support, benefits and freedom notfound among non-matrilineal societies. These benefits mayinclude for example valued resources such as access to land(see e.g., O'Rourke, 1995). Besides, non-biological memberstend to get significant support and benefits outside their ownconjugal family unit.
Mechanisms linking lineage ties to maritaloutcomes
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Matrilineal family ties could weaken family cohesion therebyincreasing the rate of marital disruption. Hence, we expect therisk of marital dissolution to be higher among matrilineal thannon-matrilineal women.
The relative degree of autonomy that matrilineal women derivefrom their non-conjugal family members could in turn increasewomens relative risk for divorce. Thus, we expect ratesmatrilineal rather than non-matrilineal women to have lowerduration of marriages.
Summary of key hypotheses
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Methodology
The present analysis is based on pooled data from ever-
married women interviewed in the 1988, 1993, and 1998
Ghana Demographic and Health Surveys [GDHS].
The GDHS is a nationally representative, stratified, self-
weighting probability sample survey of women aged15 to 49years.
The merged file yielded a sample size of 10, 843 ever-married women.
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Measures
Duration of first marriage was used as the dependentvariable.
The main independent variable, kinship structure, wasderived from the question on ethnicity. Coded asmatrilineal or non matrilineal.
For the multivariate models, we controlled for socio-demographic factors that have been linked to maritalstability, including religion, education, place ofresidence, presence of children in the household, typeof marital union, age at first marriage, history ofpremarital births, and marriage cohort.
These are factors that have been shown to influencemarital outcomes.
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Analytical model
Because the duration of first marriage is right-censored atthe time of the survey, standard regression procedures aredeemed inadequate.
For our study, Cox proportional hazards models are used toassess the links between matrilineal family ties and theduration of first marriage.
We examined the proportionality assumption by using thethe stphtest in STATA
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Findings
Duration of First Marriage
4035302520151050
1.0
.9
.8
.7
.6
.5
.4
.3
.2
.1
0.0
Ethnicity/kinship
AKAN
NON AKAN
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Figure 1 describes the relationship between theduration of first marriage among matrilineal and non-matrilineal women.
The survival plot suggests a significant difference
between the matrilineal and non-matrilineal womenwhen it comes to their first marriages.
At all durations, we find evidence that the proportion ofmatrilineal Akan women who experienced a maritaldisruption was higher than non-matrilineal women.
For example, at 15 years of marriage, about 25% ofAkan marriages had been dissolved compared with only10% of non-Akan marriages
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Multivariate Findings
Kinship/ethnicity
Akan 1.57(0.03)*** 1.34(0.03)*** 1.34(0.03)*** 1.26 (0.03)*** 1.35(0.03)*** 1.72(0.05)***
Non Akan (reference) 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00
Religion
Catholic 0.84(0.04)*** 0.83 (0.05)*** 0.85(0.05)** 0.70(0.08)***
Moslem 0.68(0.06)* ** 0 .83(0.06)* 0.66(0.06) ** * 0 .59(0.07)* **
Traditional 0.50(0.08)*** 0.66(0.08)*** 0.62(0.08)*** 0.54(0.09)***
Others 0.87(0.05)* * 1 .03(0.05) 0 .87(0.05)* 0 .65(0.08)* **
Other Christian (reference) 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00
Education
Primary 2.05(0.04)*** 1.99(0.04)*** 1.50(0.04)*** 1.47(0.04)***
Secondary+ 1.62(0.05)*** 1.55(0.05)*** 0.99(0.05) 0.97(0.06)
No education (reference) 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00
Place of residence
Urban 0.94(0.03) 0.93(0.03)! 1.04(0.04) 1.04(0.04)
Rural (reference) 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00
Number of children
Childless 2.38(0.09)*** 2.38(0.09)***
Have children(reference) 1.00 1.00
Type of marital union
Polygamous 1.21(0.04)*** 1.22(0.04)***
Otherwise (reference) 1.00 1.00
Pre-marital birth
Had pre-marital birth 1.70(0.05)*** 1.69(0.05)***
No premarital birth 1.00 1.00
Age at first marriage 6.50(0.05)*** 6.59(0.05)***
Under 20 years
20 years and above
Age at survey 0.71(0.00)*** 0.70(0.00)***
Year of first marriage
1970-1979 1.81(0.05)*** 1.85(0.05)***
1980-1989 3.33(0.08)*** 3.35(0.08)***
1990 and after 7.39(0.11)*** 7.40(0.11)***
Before 1970 (reference) 1.00 1.00
Ethncity* Religion interaction
Akan*Catholic 1.35(0.10)**
Akan*Moslem 1.15
Akan*Traditional 1.42
Akan*other 1.67(0.11)***
-2 Log likelihood 53096 53005 52782 52726 46522 46497
Overall chi-square (df) 166(1) 241(5) 504 (4) 534(8) 5299(17) 5325 (21)
Prob>chi-square 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
Notes:
Standard errors are given in parentheses.
Statistical significance: ***p
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Overall, the results indicate that matriliny has a strong androbust effect on the duration of marriage.
In Model 1, there is evidence that the matrilineal Akans havea signicantly higher risk of marital disruption -- the risk being57 percent higher--than their non-Akan counterparts.
In Model 2, the effect of kinship ties remains strong androbust, suggesting that religion does not explain kindifferences in marital duration. In Model 3, the effects of kinare shown to be independent of socio-economic factors ofeducation and place of residence. Across models, there isevidence of a robust effect of kin ties on marital duration
affirming its independence
These results suggest that the ethnic differences in maritalduration cannot be attributed to socio-economic anddemographic factors, and thus provide support for ourhypotheses.
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Summary
In all our models, we found empirical support for thereported anthropological findings with regard to thepotential linkages between matrilineal social organizationsand marital instability in Africa.
The fact that family ties is an important predictor of marital
duration should in no way be construed to mean that otherstructural processes are not relevant in the context ofAfrica.
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Summary
Indeed, as the case is around the world, social changesand globalization are having immense influence on socialrelations and family processes in Africa as well.
Thus, in arguing that cultural processes are relevant forour understanding of marital outcomes in Africa, what we
argue here is that, in addition to the widely reportedvariables associated with structural changes, researchersneed to consider the cultural influences which couldconfound marital decisions and outcomes in a regionwhere family ties are salient in everyday discourse.