Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-xm8r8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-08T02:17:47.711Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Some Problems of African Urban Family Life: an Example From Kampala, Uganda, British East Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Peter C. W. Gutkind
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

It has been asserted that the African family is the “most significant feature of African society” and its “central institution.” (Phillips, 1953, p. ix) It has further been pointed out that African marriage is far more than a contract between two individuals but also represents the establishment of a link between two kinship groups. In this respect the payment of some type of wealth is an important part in the forging of a bond between the two kinship groups. Students of African sociology have paid great attention to the payment of cattle or money or other commodities as, perhaps, the most important aspect of the marriage contract. Not only has there been much discussion as to the best definition of this process but until relatively recently the exact significance of the “bride price” has not been too clearly understood. In part this was due to the fact that the wider implications of this aspect of the marriage contract were not understood. There was a tendency to view the payment of “bride price” as the key to the contractual relationship. We now know that this is not the case: in addition to the “bride price”—which is far more than simple barter-—other and equally important points of contact are established in ritual and economic and social affairs. In other words, marriage in African society is very much an integral part of the functioning of society as a whole. At one and the same time it establishes points of conflict and tension which are ritualized by a wide variety of sanctions, and leads to strengthening of the whole fabric of the society.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 10 , Issue 37 , March 1962 , pp. 88 - 104
Copyright
Copyright © 1962 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

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

Bettison, W.G., “Child Maintenance in a Small South African Town,” African Studies, 15 (1956), 132–138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Busia, K.A., Report on a Social Survey of Sekondi-Tokoradi, Accra, Government Printing Department, 1950.Google Scholar
Chinn, W.H., “The Family in Areas of Rapid Urbanization,” Proceedings of the Conference on Social Development Through the Family, Oxford, Colonial Office Document 5406/59, 1959 (Mimeographed).Google Scholar
Clarke, E., My Mother Who Fathered Me, London, Allen and Unwin, 1957.Google Scholar
Davis, K. and Blake, J., “Social Structure and Fertility,“ Economic Development and Cultural Change, 4 (1956), 211–235.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frazier, E.F., “Theoretical Structure of Sociology and Sociological Research,” British Journal of Sociology, 4 (1953), 293–311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gutkind, P.C.W., Unpublished Field Material, Kampala, Uganda, 1953-1955.Google Scholar
Gutkind, P.C.W., “Congestion and Overcrowding: An African Urban Problem,” Human Organization, Vol. 19, N° 3, 1960, pp. 129–134.10.17730/humo.19.3.vk6892661p7414u4CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hellmann, E., “The Native in the Towns,” in, The Bantu Speaking Tribes of South Africa (Ed. Schapera, I.), London, Routledge, 1946.Google Scholar
Hellmann, E., “Rooiyard,” Rhodes-Livingstone Papers N° 13, Rhodes Livingstone Institute, Lusaka, Northern Rhodesia, 1948.Google Scholar
Homans, G.C., The Human Group, London, Routledge, 1957.Google Scholar
Longmore, L., The Dispossessed, London, Jonathan Cape, 1959.Google Scholar
Mair, L.P., “African Marriage and Social Change,” in Survey of African Marriage and Family Life, Oxford, University Press (For International African Institute), 1953.Google Scholar
Malinowski, B., “Parenthood—The Basis of Social Structure,” in The New Generation (Eds. Calverton, V. E. and Schmalhausen, S. D.) New York, Macauley, 1930.Google Scholar
Mitchell, J.C., “African Urbanization in Ndola and Luanshya,” Rhodes-Livingstone Communication 6. Rhodes-Livingstone Institute, Lusaka, Northern Rhodesia, 1954.Google Scholar
Parsons, T., “The Social Structure of the Family,” in, The Family: Its Function and Destiny (Ed. Anshen, R. N.), New York, Harper, 1949.Google Scholar
Phillips, A. (Ed.), Survey of African Marriage and Family Life, Oxford, University Press, (For International African Institute) 1953.Google Scholar
Southall, A.W. and Gutkind, P.C.W., Townsmen in the Making: Kampala and Its Suburbs, East African Institute of Social Research, Kampala, Uganda, 1957.Google Scholar
UNESCO, Social Implications of Industrialization and Urbanization in Africa South of the Sahara, Paris, (For International African Institute) 1956.Google Scholar
UNESCO, “Effects of Urbanization on Family Life in the ECAFE Region,” in, Urbanization in Asia and the Far East, Research Center on the Social Implications of Industrialization in Southern Asia, Calcutta, 1957.Google Scholar