Anthropos: Anthropos, 99.2004

Bibliographische Daten

Zeitschrift

Strukturtyp:: Zeitschrift

Persistenter Identifier:: BV043334262

Titel:: Anthropos

Erscheinungsort:: Fribourg

Verlag:: Ed. St. Paul

Erscheinungsjahr:: 1906

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

Wissensgebiet:: Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie > Allgemeines

Zeitschriftenband

Strukturtyp:: Zeitschriftenband

Werks-URN (URL):: https://digi.evifa.de/viewer/resolver?urn=urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-711752

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-711752

Persistenter Identifier:: 1510222436589

Titel:: Anthropos, 99.2004

Erscheinungsjahr:: 2004

Signatur:: LA 1118

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

Zeitschriftenheft

Strukturtyp:: Zeitschriftenheft

Titel:: Bd. 99, 2004, Heft 1

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

Volltext

Anthropos 
99.2004: 3-13 
“Marriage is Trouble” 
An Analysis of Kinship, Gender Identity, and 
Sociocultural Change in Rural Tanzania 
Karen A. Porter 
Abstract. - The structurally equivalent and theoretically non 
competitive brother-sister relationship is a critical site of 
potential conflict under conditions of socioeconomic change. 
In Pare society, women have enduring identities and moral 
and material rights and responsibilities as members of natal 
patrilineages. When combined with changes engendered by 
formal codes of law, education, and Christianity, women can 
“opt out” of marriage but still bear children who gain social 
identity through matrifiliation. Women rework the logic of 
the patrilineal lineage system. Moral evaluations derive from 
factors of wealth, education, and the extent to which women 
can fulfil jural obligations to men in new ways. [East Africa, 
Pare, kinship, identity, gender, sociocultural change] 
Karen A. Porter, Assistant Professor of Anthropology in the 
Department of Comparative Sociology at the University of 
Puget Sound, Tacoma (WA, USA). She earned her B. A. at 
the University of Washington, and M. A. and Ph. D. at the 
University of Rochester. She has conducted ethnographic field 
research in Tanzania, Israel, and upstate New York, as well 
as anthropological consulting research with USAID (United 
States Agency for International Development) and Chief Leschi 
Schools of the Puyallup Tribe, Washington. She served as 
General Editor of the Anthropology of Work Review from 1997 
-2001 and has published in African Studies Review, Africa 
Today, The Encyclopedia of Community, The Chronicle of 
Higher Education, and Practicing Anthropology. 
Maisha akwe kibaha ni ndughu 1 
(The greatest thing in life is kin) 
Introduction 
Premarital births are on the rise in the rural 
communities of South Pare, Tanzania, and some 
women are even opting out of marriage altogether. 
The stringent customary prohibitions on such 
behavior, and the centrality of women to the 
reproduction of the patrilineal system make these 
developments surprising. Just as interesting is why 
such women are evaluated differently in moral 
terms by the wider community and not just labelled 
and ostracized as “wicked.” I aim to show how 
these developments “make sense” in terms of Pare 
social theory and practice by focusing on the 
brother-sister relationship and its social, jural, and 
material elements. I suggest that in this agricultural 
society, altered through interaction with capitalist 
economy, Western education, and Christianity, 
women activate their enduring gender identities 
as members of their natal patrilineages to create 
new possibilities for economic support and access 
to resources. So doing enables them to gain an 
“edge” in, defer, or sidestep marriage altogether 
and set up their own households. I link the different 
moral assessments given to women who bear 
children outside of marriage to the extent to which 
they are able to fulfill their jural obligations to 
brothers (and fathers), which is in turn, shaped by a 
woman’s socioeconomic status, level of education, 
income earning abilities, and culturally shared 
understandings of lineage reputation. Women who 
can uphold lineage responsibilities, act as “male 
daughters” (Amadiume 1987), and perpetuate the 1 
1 Italicized words are Chasu, the Pare language, except 
where indicated. KiSwahili words are designated [Sw.] in 
the text.

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