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Marriage rules on the Plateau: an exchange

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

J. C. Muller  and
Barrie Sharp
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Extract

In his recent review article (Sharpe, 1983) Barrie Sharpe submits two of my books (Muller, 1976, 1981) to dissection but he does so in such a carefree manner, with so many mistakes and gratuituous assumptions, that I am prompted to reply in order to set the record straight.

I am first accused of not having dealt with ’religious conversion, social change and economy in [my] two books’. This is partly true for Du bon usage, and I have explained the reasons for not analysing the matrimonial changes brought about by British colonization (p. 28). It would have made too cumbersome a book and would have been beside the point. As for Parenté et manage, I have dealt with ‘economy, social change and conversion’ (pp. 46–67 for economy; 99–100 on the changes in bridewealth payments for literate people; 138–40 about the introduction of reimbursement of bridewealth, for instance, but there are many more changes examined together with the influence of Christianity on marriage throughout the book). These aspects are also covered in three articles published separately: one on inter-tribal trade, another on conversion, and a third on economic change and tin mining, a topic also dealt with in the review article in question (Muller, 1972, 1974, 1980a).

Type
Marriage and society in central Nigeria
Information
Africa , Volume 54 , Issue 4 , October 1984 , pp. 22 - 30
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1984

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References

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