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The Changing Position of Women in the Sierra Leone Protectorate

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2012

K. L. Little
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Extract

Women in the Sierra Leone Protectorate fulfil a role which, as in the case of the men, varies in accordance with their social age. In the early stages there is little distinction between the sexes either in training or in their relation to the rest of the community.

Among the Mende, the arrival of a female child is greeted by the women with even greater delight than is that of a boy. They say that girls do not forget their mothers in time of need as boys sometimes do. A girl, like a male child, is named according to whether she is the first or a subsequent surviving child of her mother; if she is the first she will be known as Boi. The children who follow her may be named after various ancestors, or after important living members of the family. The naming is done four days after birth, and the individual woman, whose name the child is to bear, carries her out in the early morning, faces the sun, spits three times on to the child's face, and says: ‘Resemble me in all my ways and deeds, because you are named after me.’ As an infant, the child is referred to as nyalui, and though she may enjoy the considerable affection of both parents, her social significance is very small. Should she die, there is no crying for her. The corpse is simply wrapped up in leaves and buried under a banana tree, or at some other place where it is customary to deposit rubbish.

Résumé

LE CHANGEMENT DE RÉGIME DES FEMMES DANS LE PROTECTORAT DE SIERRA-LEONE

L'auteur décrit la vie d'une jeune fille Mendé depuis sa naissance, en passant par son initiation dans la Société Sandé, jusqu'à son mariage et son veuvage. Il discute alors le statut social quelque peu paradoxal qui régit les femmes de ce pays. D'un côté, on les considère en quelque sorte comme un objet de propriété mais par ailleurs, elles sont loin d'être des esclaves. Leur fonction dans la société est de compléter celui des hommes plutôt que de jouer un rôle subordonné. En la remplissant elles obtiennent des compensations politiques aussi bien que sociales qui annulent la plupart dé leurs désavantages nominaux.

Dans la Société Sandé et d'autres Sociétés secrètes, les femmes occupent des fonctions héréditaires et des positions clefs. Une femme, par exemple, occupe dans la Société Poro (Société d'hommes) une fonction élevée. Le Mendé considère la femme arrivée à un certain âge au même titre qu'un homme. Si elle appartient à une famille d'importance, elle peut parfaitement être mise en charge des affaires de la famille ayant trait aux terres et aux propriétés. Étant les égales des hommes, ces femmes arrivées à un certain âge sont éligibles aux postes politiques tels que sous-chefs de village ou de ville et comme conseillers de l'administration indigène. Dans certains cas, elles sont nommées chefs suprêmes. Ce statut social dépend presque autant de l'âge que du sexe.

La position de la femme est en train de subir un changement qui, quoique plus marqué dans les villes qui touchent à la ligne de chemin de fer et dans certains quartiers urbains, ne cesse cependant de se répandre largement dans la ‘brousse’. Divers événements ont aidé à faciliter l'usageet la distribution de l'argent. Le contact avec les habitudes européennes, personnifiées en quelque sorte par la classe des Créoles qui, du point de vue économique, connaissent une certaine aisance, a poussé les femmes à vouloir obtenir de l'argent pour elles-mêmes.

Ceci affecte leur attitude vis-à-vis du mariage; elles demandent des maris qui gagnent des mensualités régulières plutôt que des fermiers. Ceci est poussé si loin, qu'un chef se vit obligé de payer un salaire régulier à ses propres femmes. Des unions passagères prennent la place de mariages réguliers dans les villes où se rendent les femmes qui ont déserté leurs maris et se livrent à un commerce occasionnel en même temps qu'à la prostitution. Ces ‘ femmes sans maris’ constituent un mal social sérieux. Le fait que des considérations pécunières remplacent des idées traditionnelles dans la détermination des statuts des femmes frappe la structure sociale indigéne en plein coeur. Les administrations indigènes promulguent des lois pour restreindre les mouvements des femmes. Un nouveau type de société, inspiré par le niveau de vie et l'étiquette européens, est en train d'émerger de l'ancienne société. Pour le moment, il offre un statut plutot bas pour ses membres féminins, partiellement à cause du pauvre équipement des femmes quant aux activités économiques dont dépendent principalement l'ordre nouveau.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , January 1948 , pp. 1 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1948

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References

page 1 note 1 The mother sits on the heap of earth that has been dug away and pushes it backwards into the grave. She and the child's father must be thoroughly ‘washed’ by the older women of the town who ‘know the leaves’, and must sleep together that night on the same bed.

page 2 note 1 The term ‘Creole’ refers generally to the descendants of the original Negro settlers of the Sierra Leone Colony whose culture, broadly speaking, is European. The custom of Protectorate notabilities sending their children to be ‘minded’ in the Colony has been in force for very many years.

page 4 note 1 The husband of the dead woman is tied to the barri, and officials of the Sande dance around, brandishing swords at him. It is considered that he may have been responsible for his wife's death by using medicine, and she is not buried until he has paid a fine to the society.

page 5 note 1 Illiterate women practise abortion very rarely because the desire for children is very strong, but a literate woman may sometimes induce an abortion for social reasons, or a prostitute to spare herself the inconvenience of pregnancy.

page 6 note 1 A widower goes through the same ceremony, If he omits it for some reason when his own wife dies, and has a misfortune, he can perform it when another man's wife dies. The ceremonies are more extensive in the case of Muslims. The man's widows are put into his barri for forty days. Their hair is shaved off and they are abused by the dead man's sister.

page 8 note 1 There was an interesting illustration of this in thes opening of a maternity centre, sponsored by one of the Native Administrations. Except for the midwives themselves, no woman approached within twenty yards of the surrounding throng of males.

page 8 note 2 Native objection to the Government using the Sande society for furthering social welfare and hygiene has been expressed on the grounds that it would mean male interference with ‘women's business’. It might be argued, however, that the real objection is to changes potentially affecting the status of the women. See later paragraphs.

page 9 note 1 In a sample of 24 ‘big men’, the average number of wives was three. According to figures supplied by Crosby (cf. Crosby, K. H., ‘Polygamy in Mende Country’, Africa, vol. x, 1937Google Scholar ) and appertaining to 20 towns and villages, a total of 1,973 wives were shared by 842 men, of whom 411 were monogamists, there being 673 other men, unmarried, of marriageable age, and only 84 other women, unmarried, of marriageable age.

page 10 note 1 The difficulty is partly offset, in some cases, by the head of the household allowing his sons access to his wives; but not, of course, to their own mothers.

page 11 note 1 There is nothing, of course, in native custom to prevent a man who is already married from making ‘friendship’ with a woman in an official way. He should approach the woman's parents or guardian with a present and obtain their permission. This means that he will not be sued for ‘woman damage’, but any children resulting from the arrangement will belong to the woman's family and not to his. He can convert the arrangement later into proper marriage by ‘showing life’, and her family may then agree to recognize the children as his. If a man wishes merely to have occasional relations with a woman and requires her at his house for the purpose, he sends one of his wives to ‘call’ her. If he goes to some other house other than the one in which he or his wives are living, the wife's intervention is unnecessary.

page 12 note 1 One such solution was analysed chemically and contained a number of metallic radicals, viz. calcium, barium, ferric iron, manganese, &c.

page 12 note 2 This represents an expenditure of about £2 on each woman.

page 12 note 3 Some idea of the amount of money ‘invested’ in wives may be gathered from the fact that in one chiefdom which ‘registers’ marriages and the money involved, the average amount of returnable bride-wealth, based on some 150 cases, was over £9.

page 12 note 4 In one case a chief sued for the return of £145, 5 bulls, 3 sheep, 2 goats, and 15 gbali (large native cloths). In individual cases, even larger sums than this are paid.

page 12 note 5 At a chiefs’ conference it was resolved that women strangers in a town should be ‘signed for’ by their landlords with 5s., payable to the Native Treasury. They were to stay with their host until called for by the husband or his representative, and the husband would repay the host his 5s.

page 13 note 1 Significantly enough, this popularity of Islam is combined with more than tacit disapproval of the Ahmaddiyyah sect of Islam which is now trying to proselytize the Protectorate. The Ahmaddiyyah allow women to sit in the mosque alongside the men, discountenance large-scale polygamy, &c, and so it i s not surprising that their followers are drawn from the poorer class of society.

page 13 note 2 Partly for this reason the ordinary ‘women's house’ is usually built without windows, i.e. to prevent the women getting out or anyone getting in, at night-time. On one occasion, when watching a public dance in a chief's compound, the writer had with him a powerful electric torch which he flashed over the dancers. He was earnestly requested by the chief to keep the light focused on the latter's wives who were taking part in the performance.

page 13 note 3 It is recorded that when this subject of ‘woman palaver’ was introduced at the conference, it was hardly possible, for a time, to keep order.

page 13 note 4 I have used the term ‘literate’ in preference to ‘civilized’ because of the difficulty of defining the latter expression sociologically in a few words in the present context. A number of non-literate women follow habits and customs similar to those of the literate class.

page 14 note 1 About two dozen Protectorate girls were attending secondary schools in Freetown in 1942, and recently a Mission school in the Protectorate has started a secondary class for girls.

page 14 note 2 The estimated average income of a sample of 48 literate men (including Creoles) of varying occupations, was £100 per annum.

page 14 note 3 In the case of 16 literate husbands, the estimated average amount spent in a year by the wife was £16.6s., compared with an estimated average amount of £8. 9s. spent on the wives of 19 illiterate husbands in the same town. The most costly single item in the case of the literate was footwear; in the case of the illiterate women, lappas.

page 14 note 4 It appears that polygynous marriage is the predominant pattern among the literate class, partly, perhaps, for the reason mentioned above. Out of a sample of 62 literate husbands, 38 were polygynously, and 24 monogamously, married.

page 15 note 1 I am indebted to Mr. J. S. Fenton, C.M.G., for some interesting comments on the present and future possibilities of this point.

page 15 note 2 Out of a sample of 25 literate husbands, 23 had been educated at a secondary school, and two at primary schools. Of their wives, only two had been to a secondary school, nine to primary schools, and the remainder were illiterate.

page 16 note 1 Recently, the Bo African Club, which is the most important centre of literate activity in the Protectorate, opened its membership to women, and women take a prominent part in its functions.