^{page 429 note 1} The author was resident during 1981–3 in Kano, where she was Visiting Fulbright Senior Lecturer in Political Science at Bayero University. This study is based in part on the insights gained from 150 interviews conducted in Kano City, a survey of 300 rural women resident in Kano State, and questionnaires administered to 800 university students.

^{page 429 note 2} This view is cogently developed by Rosaldo, Michelle Zimbalist, ‘Women, Culture and Society: a theoretical overview’, in Rosaldo, and Lamphere, Louise, Women, Culture and Society (Stanford, 1974), pp. 17–42.Google Scholar

^{page 430 note 1} Buvinic, Mayra, Yousef, Nadia, and Von Elm, Barbara, ‘Women-Headed Households: the ignored factor in development planning’, International Center for Research on Women, Washington, D.C., 1978;Google ScholarLomnitz, Larissa, Networks and Marginality (New York, 1977);Google Scholar and Chinas, Beverly, The Isthmus Zapotecs: women's roles in a cultural context (New York, 1973).Google Scholar

^{page 430 note 2} Reiter, Rayna, ‘Men and Women in the South of France: public and private domain’, in Reiter, (ed.), Toward an Anthropology of Women (New York, 1975), pp. 252–81;Google Scholar Susan Harding, ‘Women and Words in a Spanish Village’, in ibid. pp. 306–7; and Rogers, Susan Carol, ‘Female Forms of Power and the Myth of Male Dominance: models of female/male interaction in a peasant society’, in American Ethnologist (Chicago), 2, 4, 1975, pp. 727–37.Google Scholar

^{page 430 note 3} See Jaquette, Jane S., ‘Women and Modernisation Theory: a decade of feminist criticism’, in World Politics (Princeton), XXXIV, 2, 01 1982, pp. 267–84.Google Scholar

^{page 430 note 4} Rosaldo, Michelle Z., ‘The Use and Abuse of Anthropology: reflections on feminism and crosscultural understanding’, in Signs: journal of women in culture and society (Chicago), Spring 1980, p. 409.Google Scholar

^{page 430 note 5} See Ardener, Shirley (ed.), Perceiving Women (New York, 1974), pp. vii–xxiii.Google Scholar

^{page 431 note 1} I must note and acknowledge here the parallel discussion by Renee Ilene Pittin, a sociologist in Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, who not only employs the Ardener concept in her 1979 study of the neighbouring Hausa City of Katsina, but also associates with that concept an ambiguity of position in male-female Hausa relationships — see ‘Marriage and Alternative Strategies: career patterns of Hausa women in Katsina City’, Ph.D. dissertation, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1979.Google Scholar My own discussion partly represents parallel observations and insights, but it has also profited enormously from a reading of Pittin's work. The main contributions I seek to make here are in terms of elaboration and emphasis upon ‘public’ implications of a changing perception and awareness by women of their own values and realities, as distinct from the more general social and economic dynamics primarily stressed by Pittin.

^{page 431 note 2} An estimated 2.5 million live in the old walled City and the immediate newer areas, designated as ‘the Town’, while Kano State (the most populous in Nigeria) has an estimated 10 million people. There has been no officially accepted census in Nigeria since 1953, so more accurate figures with any authoritative standing are not available.

^{page 432 note 1} Mack, Beverly B., Wakokin Mata: Hausa women's oral poetry (Ann Arbor, University Microfilms International, 1981).Google Scholar

^{page 432 note 2} For discussions of the rights of women in Islamic law, see Mawdudi, Abul A's, Human Rights in Islam (Leicester, 1976);Google ScholarLemu, Aisa B. and Heeren, Fatima, Women in Islam (London, 1978);Google ScholarKhursid, Ahmad, Family Life in Islam (Leicester, 1974);Google ScholarBeck, Lois and Keddie, Nekki (eds.), Women in the Muslim World (Cambridge, Mass., 1978);CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Smith, Jane, Women in Contemporary Muslim Societies (Lewisburg, 1980).Google Scholar

^{page 433 note 1} I am using the expression ‘polarised social ambiguity’ in preference to the more familiar term ‘contradiction’ to avoid the connotations of necessary flux and economic causation, and to draw attention to the long-range structural features of male/female relationships.

^{page 434 note 1} In Hausa society, children are not necessarily brought up by their biological parents. The first-born child, in particular, is more likely to live with the mother's sister or the father's mother, rather than with its own parents. In addition, aristocratic families practise first-child avoidance or kunya.

^{page 435 note 1} Kabir, Zainab sa'd, ‘The Silent Oppression: male-female relations in Kano’, Department of Sociology, Bayero University Faculty Seminar, Kano, 05 1981.Google Scholar

^{page 435 note 2} Interviews in Kano, January and February 1982.

^{page 435 note 3} Schildkrout, Eaid, ‘Dependency and Autonomy: the economic activities of secluded Hausa women in Kano’, in Bay, Edna G. (ed.), Women and Work in Africa (Denver, 1982), pp. 56–7.Google Scholar

^{page 436 note 1} In spite of the fact that Islam explicitly states that women should not be made to marry against their will, many girls in Kano City have had their marriages arranged for them by ‘guardians’ by the age of 12, and most by the age of 14. While Islam limits one man to four wives, easy divorce and generous interpretations of concubinage permit wealthy traditional élites to have children with many women. When the Emir of Rano died, the New Nigerian (Kaduna), 15 05 1982,Google Scholar reported that he was survived by 240 children. According to one of the four wives of the present Emir of Kano, they live within the walls of the Palace along with 200 concubines, and all their children.

^{page 436 note 2} The Koran, translated by Dawood, N. J. (Harmondsworth, 1974 edn.), 4:34.Google Scholar

^{page 436 note 3} Rahman, Fazlur, ‘Islamic Modernism: its scope, method and alternatives’, in International Journal of Middle East Studies (London), 1, 4, 10 1970, pp. 329–51.Google Scholar

^{page 437 note 1} Mawdudi, Abul A'l, Birth Control: its social, political, economic, moral and religious aspects (Lahore, 1968), p. 82.Google Scholar

^{page 437 note 2} The Koran, 33:33.

^{page 438 note 1} See (Abdullahi)Smith, H. F. C., ‘The Early States of the Central Sudan’, in Ajayi, J. F. Ade and Crowder, Michael (eds.), History of West Africa, Vol. I (London, 1975), pp. 158–201Google Scholar, and Greenberg, Joseph, The Influence of Islam on a Sudanese Religion (London, 1946).Google Scholar

^{page 439 note 1} Interviews, February 1982.

^{page 439 note 2} The inordinate pressure to marry, and the anguish it can cause, is reflected in a front-page story in the Nigerian Standard (Jos), 22 June 1981. A young girl of 18 plunged to her death by diving head first into a well, rather than go through with an unwanted marriage arranged by her father.

^{page 439 note 3} As many as 80 per cent of the women students at Bayero University were married in 1982, as against only 15 per cent of their male colleagues under the age of 25. Office of the Registrar, Bayero University, ‘Student Statistics, Annual Report’, Kano, 1982.

^{page 440 note 1} Bashir, M. K., ‘The Economic Activities of Secluded Married Women in Kurawa and Lallokin, Lemu, Kano City’, B.Sc. thesis, Ahmadu Bello University, Zari, 1972;Google ScholarPittin, Renee, ‘Sex Role Stereotypes and the Behavior of Women: the ideal/real dichotomy’, in Proceedings of the National Conference on Women in Development, Vol. II (Benin, 22–26 09 1980), pp. 886–903;Google Scholar and Schildkrout, loc. cit.

^{page 441 note 1} Konan, Mildred M., ‘Occupational and Family Patterns Among the Hausa in the North of Nigeria’, Institute for Agricultural Research, Samaru Miscellaneous Paper No. 52, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, 1975, p. 14;Google Scholar and Simmons, E. B., ‘Economic Research on Women in Rural Development in Northern Nigeria’, Overseas Liaison Committee, American Council on Education, Washington, D.C., n.d., Paper No. 10, pp. 10 and 17.Google Scholar

^{page 441 note 2} This information is culled from a survey of 294 women living in a village 50 miles from Kano.

^{page 441 note 3} Abell, H. C., ‘Report to the Government of Nigeria (Northern Nigeria) on Home Economics Aspects of the F.A.O. Socio-Economic Survey of Peasant Agriculture in Northern Nigeria: the role of women in farm and home life’, Food and Agriculture Organisation, Rome, 1962;Google ScholarHill, Polly, Rural Hausa: a village and a setting (Cambridge, 1972);CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Smith, M. G., The Economy of the Hausa Communitus of Zaria (London, 1955), Colonial Research Studies, No. 16.Google Scholar

^{page 441 note 4} The Kano River Project was begun in the 1970s as a joint effort with Nigerian Federal Government, Kano State Government, and World Bank funding, in order to irrigate 22,000 hectares of land. By 1980, 4,000 hectares were actually involved, containing 2,000 families, and as part of an evaluation review, 179 respondents were interviewed about how irrigation had affected their farming efforts. Of these, 133 said their wives were kept in strict seclusion.

^{page 442 note 1} The widespread practice of complete seclusion for rural women in this area belies the common assertion that even where purdah is practiced, it is a largely urban phenomenon. Polly Hill observed in 1972 that this area is unique in the strictness and prevalence of rural purdah. Five years later she noted that ‘the poverty of many households is much exacerbated by the refusal of husbands to permit their wives to farm’; Hill, Polly, Population, Prosperity and Poverty: rural Kano, 1900–1970 (Cambridge, 1977), p. 85.Google Scholar Similar observations had been made earlier in 1955 by Smith, op. cit.

In the 1970s it was estimated that adult females contributed less than one per cent of the total farm labour output; Baba, J. M., ‘Large Scale Irrigation Development and Women's Farm Labour Participation in Hausaland: the case of the Kano River Irrigation Project’, in Omu, Fred, Makinwa, P. Kofo, and Ozo, A. O. (eds.), Proceedings of the National Conference on Integrated Rural Development and Women in Development, Vol. II (Benin, 22–26 09 1980), p. 1006.Google Scholar Women do make a contribution through domestic chores, food processing, and house trade; but, even when direly needed, they do not go outside to work. All the men interviewed complained about a shortage of labourers for irrigation intensive projects. In Baba's survey, however, 87 per cent of the men said that women should remain in purdah and not work outside their houses. Thus, this is a cultural constraint that mitigates against female participation in spite of major economic and technical changes. Farmers would rather rely on non-family labour than let women work on their farms. Although 110 of the 179 respondents in 1980 said that irrigation had created higher labour needs, only one identified female members of the family as potential workers; 110 said they would hire contract labour rather than consider asking their wives to help.

In contrast to other Islamic areas in West Africa, as the city and countryside become more involved in the national economy, the practice of wife seclusion appears to be increasing rather than decreasing. Kano enjoys the highest industrial growth rate in Nigeria, ranking second only to the capital of Lagos in its output. Therefore, the near total exclusion of Hausa women from the work force, whether in rural or urban areas, is all the more intriguing.

^{page 442 note 2} See Coulson, Noel and Hinchcliffe, Doreen, ‘Women and Law Reform in Contemporary Islam’, in Beck, and Keddie, (eds.), op. cit. pp. 37–51.Google Scholar

^{page 443 note 1} Renee Pittin, ‘Hausa Women and Islamic Law: is reform necessary?’, 22nd Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association, Los Angeles, 31 October–3 November 1979.

^{page 443 note 2} Interview, July 1982.

^{page 443 note 3} Of 15 factories in Kano surveyed by students, none employed women in other than secretarial positions. Of 88 women interviewed in two Kano neighbourhoods by the author, none worked for a salary or outside their homes.

^{page 444 note 1} I am using a modified version of the concept of ‘women's liberation’ as set forth by Giele, Janet and Smock, Audrey, Women, Roles and Status in Eight Countries (New York, 1977)Google Scholar, with the implication that questions of fundamental life options are not foreclosed to women on the basis of sex. Thus, ‘liberated’ women are free to chose whether and whom to marry, where they shall live and wish to work, to control their fertility as much as is biologically possible, and when or whether to end a marriage. They can pursue their education as they see fit and share household authority with men.

^{page 444 note 2} Kano is divided into 44 densely populated neighbourhoods, or wards. These crowded conditions, however, do not provide the alleged anonymity and lower visibility attributed to city life. Most people Living inside the city walls are descendants of families who have been located there for generations. In this old, traditional City, the sense of small, face-to-face community is maintained in the midst of an urban culture, rapid population growth, and economic diversification.

^{page 445 note 1} A study of 88 married women in Kano City and a survey of 800 university students at Bayero University concerning their attitudes towards women's education and rôles were conducted during 1981–3 by the author.

^{page 445 note 2} Federal Electoral Commission, 1979 Election, Kano City (Kano, 1979).Google Scholar

^{page 446 note 1} In the Nigerian educational system, both secondary schools and teacher-training colleges are post-primary institutions serving the same age constituency. It is assumed that students in secondary schools will pursue higher education, unlike those who have been trained to become teachers in the elementary or primary schools.

^{page 446 note 2} Ministry of Education, Kano State Secretariat, Statistical Report (Kano), 1976 to 1982.Google Scholar

^{page 447 note 1} Safilios-Rothchild, Constantine, ‘Toward a Cross-cultural Conceptualization of Modernity’, in Journal of Comparative Family Studies (Calgary), 1, Fall 1970, pp. 17–27;Google Scholar and Giele and Smock op. cit.Google Scholar