Marie Michael Library

The Vagaries of descent-reckoning: father's right is mother's loss

Geisler, Gisela

The author argues that descent systems are not always changed by forces beyond control but are manipulated by those who hope to gain. Among the Toka of Zambia, the adoption of a patrilineal ideology was never tied to economic development but merely subordinated matrilineal practices to patrilineal aims. The manipulation of both descent systems legitimised the maximization of male control over the unpaid labour of women, children and unmarried men and over scarce land in order to cope with agricultural underdevelopment.