GST 201

General African Studies

Social Organization
Definitions of Social Organisation
Family and Kinship-Structural Varieties
Marriage and Typologies of Marriages in Africa-

Monogamy, Polygyny, Polygyny,Polyandry,

Plural Marriage, Homogamy, Levirate, Ghost,
etc
Antecedents of Marriage and Family
Rules of Residence and Descent
Pre-colonial Economic and Political
Arrangements including Dispute Resolution

Social organization - Introduction

The word social has two important meanings:
1. found or living in groups or not alone.

Animals such as chimpanzees, hyenas,

elephants and humans are examples.
2. connected to society and the way it is
organized. In this sense, a thing is considered
social if it is related with human society. Society
is here defined as the network of
interrelationships among members of a group
who share a common culture, occupy a
particular territorial area, and have a feeling
that they constitute a unified and distinct entity
(Scott & Marshall, 2005).

What is social
organization?
The word organization means arrangement or
coordination.
Social organization is the manner or way in
which different parts of a society are arranged
and made to function together to ensure order
and the achievement of goals they consider
worthwhile.
Social organization also shows how individual
members relate to one another and how each
relates to the whole.

Social organization
The most basic feature of social organization

is its inter-individual feature.

Social organization can be considered at the
level of an entire society, at the group level or
at the level of social interactions occurring
between two individuals.
At the macro level, it shows how the
component groups and members of a given
society interface and how they are related
(connected).

Family and Kinship Structural Varieties

The family is a group of people who are united

with the bond of marriage, blood or adoption

and comprising a single household that
interact and intercommunicate with one
another in their various social roles of
husband and wife, mother and father, brother
and sister and creating a common culture
(Burgess & Locke).

Family defined
The family is a social group characterized by

common residence, economic cooperation and

reproduction (Murdock).
A family includes adults of both sexes, at least
two of whom maintain a consensual sexual
relationship, and one or more children which
may be begotten or adopted children of the
sexually cohabiting adults. In Murdocks
opinion, the family is a universal human social
grouping.

Functions of the family

sexual relationships (that is determining

people who can be consensually involved in

sexual relationships);
economic cooperation among members;
reproduction;
and socialization of children.

The conjugal family is a unit comprising of

spouses and their dependent children (Scott &

Marshall, 2005).
The extended family consists of two or more
conjugal families that are related either by
blood or marriage. An extended family
combines at least two generations in defining
relationships.

By implication, all members of a clan or

kinship group may be members of a very large

extended family.

Family of orientation/procreation
The family into which one is born is the family

of orientation.
The family that one establishes is the family
of procreation.
(This is determined by ones role in the
family)

Kinship
Kinship relationships exist primarily between

individuals and groups who have

consanguineous ties (i.e related by blood) or
secondarily through ties of affinity (i.e
marriage).
Members of a kinship group are those who
are/consider themselves as having descended
from a common ancestor or those who are
related by marriage.

Kinship in Africa
Kinship groups served (still serve) as political

units in the absence of nation-states in the

precolonial era.
Kinship groups serve as the basis for
inheritance.
Basis for succession
Basis for regulation of sexual relationships.
Through kinship groups, people were
organized into hunting and warring groups.
The were useful for identity the we-they
dichotomy was based on the kinship groups.

Lineage
Unilineal descent
Matrilineal (through the mother) Bemba of

Zambia, Ashanti of Ghana, Tuareg of Niger

and Mali, and the Kom of Cameroun.
Patrilineal (through the father e.g Igbo
speaking people, the Fulani, the Nuer of
Sudan, the Zulu and Swazi of South Africa).

Lineage
Bilateral or cognatic descent establishes

descent through both the patrilineal and

matrilineal system. Examples are found
among Yako of Nigeria and Herero of Namibia
and Botswana.
Patriarchy, the social system based on the
authority of men is pervasive even in
matrilineal and cognatic kinship groups.

Marriage
Marriage is a legally recognized relationship

between a man and a woman, which confers

on them certain rights and demands certain
obligations of them (Scott & Marshall).
People are considered married therefore if
their coming together to live as married is not
against the norms guiding marriage in their
society.

Forms of marriage
Monogamy - marriage of one man and one

woman at a time.
Polygamy/plural marriage involving more
than two people (polygyny and polyandry)
When an individual is involved in several
monogamous marriages by divorcing one
partner and remarrying, this is referred to as
serial monogamy.

Forms of marriage
Polyandry may be fraternal polyandry in

which case the husbands are brothers or nonfraternal polyandry where the husbands are
not related.
Polyandry practiced among Irigwe of Plateau
state, Massai of Kenya and Tanzania, Lele of
Western Congo (hohombe).
Polygyny is pervasive in Africa even in places
where polyandry is practiced.

Other forms of marriage/practices

Levirate
Widow inheritance
Sororate marriage man marries sisters

consecutively or concurrently (sororal

polygyny)
Ghost marriage (a female pater marries a wife
and provides a consort/genitor to raise
children for herself).

Rules on eligibility
Endogamy requires that an individual marries

within a defined category, community, or group.

Exogamy requires an individual to marry from
outside a group.
Homogamy requires that an individual marries
someone who is culturally similar to him/her (i.e
marriage to ones type). The grounds of
similarity may also be religion, social class, or
gender, in which case homogamy may mean
same-gender marriage i.e homosexual marriage.

Antecedents of Marriage and Family

The story of Adam and Eve

Antecedents of Marriage and Family

Engels account
Hordes of hunting and gathering humans
The Consanguine family
The Punaluan family
The Pairing family
The Monogamous family

Rules of residence
Patrilocal residence
Matrilocal residence
Avunculocal residence requires the new family to

reside near the house or in the compound of the

grooms maternal uncle.
Bilocal residence allows the couple to live
with/near either of the spouses parents. A form
of bilocal residence rule is ambilocal residence in
which the couple shifts from residence with the
grooms kinship group to residence with the
brides kinship group.

Rules
of
residence
Matri-patrilocal residence is a form of ambilocal
residence. Here, the new family resides with the
brides group for a while (may be for the first one
year or until the birth of the first child) and then
move to live with the grooms family indefinitely
(Murdock, 1949).
Duolocal means that the new family has no
common residence and they remain in their
families of orientation.
Neolocal residence has become very popular. This
rule of residence requires the new family to live in
a new residence, away from the groups of the
groom and the bride.

Pre-colonial economic and political

arrangements including dispute resolution
The family served as an economic institution in

most African cultures.

Many of the economic activities were dependent
on the physical environment and required very
simple technology and tools. Subsistence
farming took place among all the peoples of
Africa to varying degrees.

Economic activities
Another major economic activity was pastoral

farming. Maasai herdsmens are found in the

Serengeti plains of Tanzania and Kenya, while
the Fulani herdsmen are found across the
savannah of West Africa in Mauritania, The
Gambia, Senegal, Guinea, Mali, Nigeria, Benin,
Sierra Leone, Togo etc. Herdsmen are mostly
nomadic since they must move to get pasture
and food/water for their animals.

The peoples of Africa in the coastal areas and

around the river basins are involved in fishing

as a major economic activity. Some farming
peoples in Africa include Ewe people of
Ghana, the Luo people of Kenya and Tanzania,
the Izon people of Nigeria, the Gun people of
Benin Republic and Nigeria to mention but a
few. Like herdsmen, traditional fishing peoples
also migrate and often have enclaves outside
their domains.

Economic activities
Other major economic activities in traditional

Africa include cloth weaving, leather works,

iron smith, animal husbandry, hunting and
gathering and trading. Today, many of these
economic activities have been taken over by
contemporary activities in industrial
production and services.

Political systems
There were acephalous/stateless groups as well as state

groups. Among the stateless groups, there were no

recognized supreme rulers beyond the family or village
head.
Agricultural Societies like the Temne of Sierra Leone, Igbospeaking people of Nigeria, The Luo, Maasai and Nandi of
Tanzania and Kenya, and the Galla of Ethiopia are
examples of peoples without such supreme heads beyond
the immediate family or village head (Fyle, 1999).
Others had states or empires. Examples include the Oyo
Empire of the Yourba people in Nigeria, the Zulu Empire in
South Africa, the Lunda Empire in East Africa and the
Ashanti Kingdom in Ghana.
The political institutions were saddled with the
responsibility of dispute resolution.

Political systems
In stateless communities, disputes were settled

by family heads or village heads, and where

disputes occurred between two of such villages,
meetings were organized at the senior village
or the village established by a senior patriarch.
Among peoples with more clearly defined
political systems, disputes were settled by kings
and chiefs and where disputes occurred between
two communities, the central or supreme head
served as an arbiter (Fyle, 1999).

All the best