The re-analysis of classical ethnography has become an anthropological industry Since segmentary lineage models enshrined so many of the assumptions integral to what we have learned to call the structural-functional paradigm, they have been subjected to trial by this form of interrogation particularly often. Africanists will be aware that the statuses of Evans-Pritchard's model of Nuer social organization and of Fortes's of Tallensi remain controversial within anthropological circles long after their publication. Another of the classical analyses of a segmentary lineage organization, that made by Laura and Paul Bohannan of the Tiv, seems to have escaped the same degree of controversy. The reason is not without interest: the Bohannans' analyses have been ensured relative immunity from criticism by the general acceptance that their model of Tiv social organization so evidently corresponds to some of the ways in which indigenous Tiv social theorizing represents Tiv society. In other words, and quite explicitly, the Bohannans' analytic model is also a Tiv folk model.

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).

There is a general recognition, supported to a large extent by research findings, that in most of the Western industrialized world, women's participation in the salaried work force has a depressing effect on fertility (Kupinsky, 1977; Stycos and Weller, 1967). But research findings on this topic in the less developed world have been largely inconsistent. While a number of these studies find the fertility of women who work for wages to be lower than that of other women (Miro and Rath, 1965; Jaffe and Azumi, 1960; World Fertility Survey, 1980; and Lightbourne et al., 1982), the findings of other studies suggest very little or no differences in the fertility of wage working and nonwage working women (Stycos, 1965; Stycos and Weller, 1965; Okediji, 1976; and Mott, 1974). Furthermore, the findings of other studies suggest that it may not be the assumed role incompatibility between wage employment and familial role per se that leads to reductions in fertility, but rather the degree of approval/disapproval of domestic roles for women (Hass, 1972), normative conflicts (Mason and Pelan, 1981), or the degree of work commitment (Safilios-Rothschild, 1972).

Two contrasted viewpoints are adopted by scholars towards indigenous credit institutions in underdeveloped societies. The first holds that such institutions cannot play any significant role in capital formation in those societies. Thus Firth (1964: 15–34) doubts ‘if such credit associations can contribute substantially to capital formation to promote economic growth significantly’. The second viewpoint is held by those who accept the important contributions of these institutions in the process of development but understate their functions and value in the process of development. Geertz (1962: 241–63) belongs to this group. After analysing indigenous credit institutions in Asia and Africa, he asserts that they can serve as a kind of ‘middle rung’ in economic development. He sees them as an ‘educational mechanism in terms of which peasants learn to be traders not merely in the narrow occupational sense, but in the broad cultural sense’. These conclusions seem to have influenced other scholars studying credit institutions in Africa. For instance, in his study of credit associations among the Afikpo Igbo, S. Ottenberg (1968: 237–52) adopts much of Geertz's stance.

This essay argues that courtship procedures, of which the giving of bridewealth forms a part, may under certain conditions help to socialize younger men into their mature economic roles. Further, in so far as bridewealth performs these functions, it contributes to the reproduction of labour in these economies.