Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T03:57:00.815Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Marriage Payments, Household Structure, and Domestic Labour-Supply among the Barma of Chad

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2012

Stephen Reyna
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This paper investigates the relationship between marriage payments, household structure, and domestic labour-supply among the Barma of the Republic of Chad. Recently, Netting has noted that ‘…household composition among farmers varies with the type and amount of labor required for effective crop production’ (1974: 29). Netting is supported by evidence from Europe (Chayanov: 1966; Symes: 1972); Africa (Jones: 1949; Basehart: 1973; Netting: 1968; Reining: 1970; Udo: 1965); Asia (Barth: 1959; Befu: 1968; Leach: 1961; Moerman: 1968; Yang: 1945); South America (Webster: 1973); North America (Bennett: 1969); and the Pacific (Sahlins: 1957). Implicit in this literature is the realization that the household structural types prevalent in societies are those which provide adequate labour supplies in specific ecosystems with particular agrarian technologies. While this research indicates that differing agrarian societies require varying labour supplies, it does not in general show how they achieve these supplies. This paper demonstrates how marriage payments may operate to regulate different aspects of household structure to provide adequate labour to the Barma domestic unit.

Résumé

APPORTS DOTAUX, STRUCTURE DOMESTIQUE ET MAIN D'OEUVRE FAMILIALE CHEZ LES BARMA DU TCHAD

Prenant les Barma du Tchad comme exemple, ce rapport étudie les effets que peuvent avoir les apports dotaux sur la structure du foyer, en particulier la différence d'âge entre époux, l'écart entre enfants mariés et la descendance de ces derniers, ainsi que l'âge des polygames mâles. De plus, on y explique comment ces deux derniers paramètres structuraux contribuent sous certaines conditions à maintenir une source de main d'œuvre domestique satisfaisante.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , January 1977 , pp. 81 - 88
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1977

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Barth, F. 1959. ‘Segmentary opposition and the theory of games: a study of Pathan organization,’ Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 89: 5–21.Google Scholar
Basehart, H. W. 1973. ‘Cultivation intensity, settlement patterns, and homestead forms among the Matengo of Tanzania,’ Ethnology 12: 57–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Befu, H. 1968. ‘Ecology, residence, and authority: the corporate household in Central Japan’, Ethnology 7:25–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bennett, J. 1969. Northern Plainsmen: Adaptive Strategy and Agrarian Life. Chicago: Aldine.Google Scholar
Brass, W.etal. 1968. The Demography of Tropical Africa. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chayanov, A. V. 1966. The Theory of Peasant Economy. Homewood, III.: Irvin.Google Scholar
Goody, J. 1970. ‘Marriage, prestations, inheritance and descent in pre-industrial societies’, Journal of Comparative Family Studies 1: 37–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goody, J. 1973. ‘Bridewealthanddo wryin Africa and Eurasia’,in: Goody, J.Tambiah, S. J. (eds.) Bridewealth and Dowry. London: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jones, G. I. 1949. ‘Ibo land tenure,’, Africa 19: 309–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Insee 1966. Enquête démographique au Tchad, 1964. Tomes I et II. Paris: République Francaise, Secrétariat d'Etat aux Affaires Etrangères, Chargé de la Coopération.Google Scholar
Leach, E. R. 1961. Pul Eliya, Village in Ceylon, London: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mair, L. 1953. ‘African marriage and social change’, in: Phillips, A. (td.). Survey of African Marriage and Family Life. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Moerman, M. 1968. Agricultural Change and Peasant Choice in a Thai Village. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Netting, R. MCC. 1968. Hill Farmers of Nigeria: Cultural Ecology of the Kofyar ofthe Jos Plateau. Seattle: University of Washington.Google Scholar
Netting, R. MCC. 1974 ‘Agrarian ecology’, in: Siegal, B., Beals, A. and Tyler, S. (eds.) Annual Review of Anthropology 3 Palo Alto: Annual Reviews.Google Scholar
Pias, J. 1964. Notice Explicative. Cartes Pedologiques de Reconnaissance au Feuillee de Ft. Lamy, Massenya, Mogroum. No. 14 Paris: Orstom.Google Scholar
Reining, P. 1970. ‘Social factors and food production in an East African peasant society: the Haya’, in: Mcloughlin, P. F. M. (ed.) African Food Production Systems. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.Google Scholar
Reyna, S. 1972. The Costs of Marriage: a Study of Some Factors Affecting Northwest Barma Fertility. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation N. Y.: Columbia University.Google Scholar
Reyna, S. 1975. ‘Making do when the rains stop: adjustment of domestic structure to climatic variation among the Barma’, Ethnology 19: 405–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sahlins, M. 1957. ‘Land-use and the extended family in Moala, Fiji’, American Anthropologist 59:449–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Symes, D. 1972. ‘Farm household and farm performance: a study of 20th century changes in Ballyferriter, Southwest Ireland’, Ethnology 11:25–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Udo, R. K. 1965. ‘Disintegration of nucleated settlement in Eastern Nigeria’, Geographic Review 55: 53–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Webster, S. 1973. ‘Nativepastoralism in the Southern Andes’, Ethnology 12: 115–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yang, M. C. 1945. A Chinese Village: Taitou, Shantung Province. N. Y.: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar