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Social change in kinship and marriage among the Yoruba of western Nigeria

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BirdMEC_1958redux.pdf (43.19Mb)
Date
1958
Author
Bird, Mary E. C.
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Abstract
 
 
The material has shown that in traditional Yoruba society the lineage is the unit of social action. Jchwab ( 1955, pp.355 -6), speaking of the Yoruba town of Oshogbo, states explicitly, "Apart from the usual differentials of sex and age, membership in an idile (lineage) is the primary determinant of an individual's social, economic and political role. The idile forms the basis for association in the residential unit, the compound.'
 
The new trend towards autonomy of the domestic group is well documented. The Sofers (1956) comment on the decline of the importance of the clan in Jinja, the trend towards monogamy and the emerging tendency to regard marriage as a relationship between two individuals rather than as an inter-group affair. Similar information is provided by Busia (1950) on Sekondi -Takoradi, Hellmann (1956) on South Africa, Doucy and Feldheim (1956) on two districts in the Belgian Congo, Banton (1957) on Freetown, Crabtree (1950) on the urban areas of Ghana, and Lombard (1954) on Cotonou. The last describes the general trend (op.cit. p. 356), "De tous temps, la famille a ete en Afrique la cellule sociale fondamentale. Autrefois, le menage n'etait qu'une fraction de la famille, sans personnalite ni autonomie. Aujourd'hui, sans avoir rompu totalement avec la grande collectivite, il tend a representer principalement dans les villes, l'element essentiel de la vie familiale ".
 
To conclude, the following quotation sums up the position among the Yoruba, as among other African societies in transition to -day.
 
"What in fact has happened under the impact of industrialisation and technical change is that life has become very much more specialised. In the towns, the kin group is no longer economically self -sufficient, and in the rural areas its solidarity for the multiple tasks performed under the traditional system is seriously impaired by migration. The result is that a new social organisation has arisen which has taken over many of the activities previously carried on by the extended family and the lineage. There is now specialisation not only of economic activities but of all the principal activities of community life, including the care and training of children, religion, recreation, government, and mutual aid." (Little, 1955, pp. 283 -4).
 
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/1842/28022
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