Harrison Baer

10-20-10

The Asante nation has historically given a relatively high degree of power and

respect to women. At the advent of colonization and the cash economy, however, Asante

women began to see their unique position deteriorate as their productive and reproductive

labor became more valuable. This assault on women’s rights caused the female

population to employ seasoned strategies as well as new ones, with which they attempted

to defy their newfound oppression and gain economic autonomy and security. Divorce,

the deferral of marriage, and professions such as prostitution were among the tools used

by women to gain economic independence. The men, for the purpose of controlling the

vast potential for work-based income that women’s productive and reproductive labor

held, attempted to thwart their tactics using equal and opposite methods. These included

adultery payments, laws that made it illegal for a woman to be unmarried, and stigmas

that held single women in very low regard. Asante women’s engines for securing

economic autonomy resulted in an inevitable gender clash, and the results were laws and

beliefs put forth by men to control women’s economic potential. Although the origin of

this power struggle is difficult to define, its trail eventually leads to the cash economy and

resulting culture that European influence created.

Before the tactics used by men and women to gain power can be discussed, it is

essential to understand the value of women’s productive and reproductive labor. The

economic potential that women provided is defined in the context of a nation whose

culture revolved around agriculture, more specifically cocoa. Cocoa defined the gender

struggle because it transformed the farming market from one that provided modest capital
gain, to a new monetized model that’s aim was the mass production of cocoa. Productive

capacity, while influenced lightly by factors such as weather and soil, was predominantly

defined by the amount of raw labor available. A man whose wife had eight children,

therefore, produced more cocoa and received more income than a man whose wife bore

only five. Controlling reproductive labor, therefore, was essential to profit maximization.

A wife herself also provided labor, and the costs of creating and maintaining cocoa farms

were vastly reduced if two people shared the work. In addition to farm labor, women

were generally responsible for the distribution and retail of cocoa. This was arguably the

most important step in the process of cocoa farming, and because of the long treks

involved, was one of the most labor-intensive. By increasing the amount of available

labor, the continual presence of a childbearing wife could increase the returns of a cocoa

farm exponentially. This continual presence, however, was by no means assured.

Asante women had long employed divorce as a means of escaping the control of

men, and it was a valuable form of gaining economic autonomy. The age of this tactic is

confirmed in the proverb, “If you fear divorce, you never sleep on a good bed” (133). The

idea of being unconditionally bound for life was obviously not a pleasing one to Asante

women or men, but divorce began to hold more and more significance for females,

because being married represented dependence. Traditionally divorce held certain debts

for Asante women, most notably the loss of time working on farms, which, upon divorce,

they gained nothing from. As women began to use divorce as a tool to gain

independence, British courts assisted them in rulings that forced husbands to give women

a share of jointly worked property upon separation. This challenge to Asante tradition

allowed women to separate from their husbands with a solid amount of capital by which
they could sustain themselves. This newfound self-sufficiency increased the incidence of

divorces, and divorce was generally the first step to a woman’s economic autonomy.

Once free of the conjugal relationship, women turned to means by which they

could generate income. These included farming, crafting, trading, and prostitution. The

land they could gain from divorce assisted in this process, and women often worked in

groups to farm and sell their products. Women formed groups in trade and prostitution as

well, and this collective power served to augment their autonomy. A letter written by a

formal collection of prostitutes, while it’s requests were denied, exemplifies the new

found influence that Asante women could gain by working as a collective. “That, your

humble Petitioners are the Baasi Community in Kumasi, that we have formed our

unity…”(149) For women that chose trading and prostitution, the rise of Kumasi as a

trading city was vital to their success. It served to bring together other women with which

to collaborate, and also concentrated the demand and outlets for goods such as liquor,

cloth, and sex.

As single women supporting themselves became more common, the male

population felt threatened, fearing that the gains they realized from their own wives’

labor were in danger. This spurred forms of controlling the sexuality and reproductive

labor of women, such as Ayefare. Ayefare is a transaction between men, incurred when a

man has sexual relations with another man’s wife. While it did act as a deterrent to

adultery, ayefare is more accurately described as a form of control, and much of it’s

significance lies in it’s symbolism, as stated in this quote, “For those who controlled the

Asante state, ayerefa obviously served to reinforce and reproduce relationships of power

and subordination”(174). For the Asante chiefs and later for other men, ayefare was a
form of income and power, and took up a much more concrete role as a sexual controller.

Asante chiefs would encourage their wives to commit adultery so as to collect the

payments. They would also order their wives to commit adultery with certain men that

they wanted gone- for the penalties for sleeping with a chiefs wife could be death.

Penalties scaled according to social status, and in this sense ayefare was implemented by

the upper class as a covert tool of control and power, and a means by which they could

further profit from and control their wives’ sexuality.

The male fear of womens’ autonomy is also seen in the laws and ideas spread to

discourage the incidence of single women. Asante chiefs even went so far as to round up

unmarried women and marry them off systematically, as is described in this first-hand

account. “We were arrested and just dumped into a room- all of the women of Effiduasi

who were not married…”(151). Actions such as these were justified by new stigmas that

unmarried women were uncontrollable, and spreading prostitution and venereal disease:

“The chiefs…justified their actions by arguing that venereal diseases and prostitution

were prevalent in their divisions”(153). The view of unmarried women as subversive and

unallowable contrasts sharply with the fact that the majority of postmenopausal women

were unmarried, shown in this quote describing Mamponten and Oyoko, “the vast

majority (90 percent) of postmenopausal women were, in fact, single”(150). The fact that

the line of acceptability was drawn at the age of child-bearing and overall physical fitness

further reinforces the overarching motives of Asante men as control of womens’

productive and reproductive labor.

The strategies utilized by men to control the economic potential women possessed

were directly reflective of the tactics the female population chose to use. Like many tools
of control used in colonial Africa, most methods employed by the men were multi-

faceted in achieving a specific purpose and instilling a mindset. Initially, the male tactic

was to directly combat female attempts at autonomy. As women pushed forward,

however, this approach became more streamlined and men started to directly outlaw the

end result that they feared: single, self-sufficient women. While much of this gendered

conflict is attributed to the cash economy, Asante women are fighting the same battle as

females across the globe. In seeking equality, the women of Asante are righting a wrong

just as hurtful and divisive as racism, and their strength and determination leads Ghana

on its journey of social progress.