Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T11:27:12.008Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Men, Women, and Trade

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Sidney W. Mintz
Sidney W. Mintz
Affiliation:
Yale University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This paper considers one aspect of the relationship between social organization and certain sorts of economic activity, using a particular setting, the internal market system in peasant societies (Mintz, 1959), as a frame of reference. The argument proceeds from the well-known fact that, in many of these market systems, much or even most of the distributive activity is carried on by women, and these women often engage in commerce more or less independently of the economic undertakings of their husbands. In such cases, husband and wife participate in distinguishably different risk structures, an arrangement having particular relevance to the nature of family life and culturally determined sex-role differentiation. Furthermore, since husbands and wives in such cases may carry on not only independent but also different economic pursuits, it would not be surprising if some of the attitudes related to the kind of economic activity also differed along sexual lines. Productive and distributive undertakings require different skills; probably they evoke different temperamental responses as well. One might claim that the tests of success for the middleman are different in character from the tests of success for the agricultural producer; those successful in one pursuit are not necessarily those most likely to succeed in the other. Of course this contention does not preclude some optimum combination of skills; many producers alsoengage successfully in intermediary and distributive activities, and some of the so-called underdeveloped world's most skilled traders began as agricultural producers (Bauer, 1957: 71; Bauer and Yamey, 1957: 104–5).

Type
Markets
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , July 1971 , pp. 247 - 269
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1971

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES CITED

Bauer, Peter (1954), West African Trade. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bauer, Peter (1957), Economic Analysis and Policy in Underdeveloped Countries. Durham: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Bauer, Peter, AND Basil, Yamey (1957), The Economics of Underdeveloped Countries. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Bohannan, Paul, and George, Dalton, eds. (1962), Markets in Africa. Evanston: North-western University Press.Google Scholar
Brelsford, V. W. (1947), Copperbelt Markets. Lusaka: Government Printer.Google Scholar
Comhaire-Sylvain, Suzanne (1951), ‘Le travail des femmes a Lagos’, Zaire, V, 169–87; 475–502.Google Scholar
Geertz, Clifford (1963), Peddlers and Princes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Herskovits, M. J. (1952), Economic Anthropology. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
Hill, Polly (1963), ‘Markets in Africa’, The Journal of Modem African Studies, 1, 441–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, Polly (1969), ‘Hidden trade in Hausaland’, Man, 4, 392–409.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodder, B. W. (1962), ‘The Yoruba rural market’. In Markets in Africa, Paul, Bohannan and George, Dalton, eds. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, pp. 103–17.Google Scholar
Hodder, B. W. and Ukwu, U. I. (1969), Markets in Africa. Ibadan: Ibadan University Press.Google Scholar
Kaplan, David (1965), ‘The Mexican marketplace then and now’, Proceedings of the 1965 Annual Spring Meeting of the American Ethnological Society, 80–94.Google Scholar
Katzin, Margaret (1959), ‘The Jamaican country higgler’, Social and Economic Studies 8, 421–10.Google Scholar
Katzin, Margaret (1964), ‘The role of the small entrepreneur’. In Economic Transition in Africa, Herskovits, M. J. and Harwitz, M., eds. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, pp. 179–98.Google Scholar
Colette, Le Cour Grandmaison (1969), ‘Activites economiques des femmes dakaroises’, Africa, XXXIX, 138–52.Google Scholar
Legerman, Caroline (1962), ‘Kin groups in a Haitian market’, Man, 62 (233): 145–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Le Vine, Robert (1966), ‘Sex roles and economic change in Africa’, Ethnology, V, 186–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, W. Arthur (1958), ‘Economic development with unlimited supplies of labour’. In The Economics of Underdevelopment, Agarwala, A. N. and Singh, S. P., eds. London: Oxford University Press, pp. 400–49.Google Scholar
Leyburn, James G. (1941), The Haitian People. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Little, Kenneth (1948), ‘The changing position of women in the Sierra Leone Protec-torate’, Africa, XVIII, 1–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marshall, Gloria A. (1964), Women, trade and the Yoruba family. Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University.Google Scholar
McCall, Daniel (1961), ‘Trade and the role of wife in a modern West African town’. In Social Change in Modern Africa, Southall, Aidan, ed. London: International African Institute, pp. 286–99.Google Scholar
Métraux, Alfred (1951), Making a living in the Marbial Valley (Haiti). UNESCOOccasional Papers in Education 10.Google Scholar
Mintz, Sidney W. (1955), ‘The Jamaican internal marketing pattern’, Sociol and Economic Studies, 4: 95–103.Google Scholar
Mintz, Sidney W. (1959), ‘Internal market systems as mechanisms of social articulation’, Proceedings of the 1959 Annual Spring Meetings of the American Ethnological Society: 20–30.Google Scholar
Mintz, Sidney W. (1964a), ‘The employment of capital by market women in Haiti’. In Capital, Saving and Credit in Peasant Societies, Firth, Raymond and Yamey, Basil, eds. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Co., pp. 256–86.Google Scholar
Mintz, Sidney W. (1964b), Peasant Market Places and Economic Development in Latin America. Vanderbilt University Graduate Center for Latin American Studies Occasional Paper no. 4, pp. 1–9.Google Scholar
Mintz, Sidney W., AND Douglas, Hall (1960), The Origins of the Jamaican Internal Marketing System. Yale University Publications in Anthropology, 57, 1–26.Google Scholar
Miracle, Marvin P. (1962), ‘African markets and trade in the copperbelt’. In Markets in Africa, Bohannan, Paul and Dalton, George, eds. Evanston: Northwestern Univer-sity Press, pp. 698–738.Google Scholar
Mukwaya, A. B. (1962), ‘The marketing of staple foods in Kampala, Uganda’. In Markets in Africa, Bohannan, Paul and Dalton, George, eds. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, pp. 643–66.Google Scholar
Nadel, S. F. (1942), Black Byzantium. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nypan, Astrid (1960), Market Trade: a Sample Survey of Market Traders in Accra. University College of Ghana African Business Series 2.Google Scholar
Ottenberg, Phoebe (1959), ‘The changing economic position of women among the Afikpo Ibo’. In Continuity and Change in African Cultures, Bascom, W. and Herskovits, M., eds. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Pedler, F. J. (1955), Economic Geography of West Africa. London: Longmans Green and Co.Google Scholar
Tardits, Claudine, AND Claude, Tardits (1962), ‘Traditional market economy in South Dahomey’. In Markets in Africa, Bohannan, Paul and Dalton, George, eds. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, pp. 89–102.Google Scholar
Tax, Sol (1952), ‘Economy and technology’. In Heritage of Conquest, Tax, Sol, ed. Glencoe: Free Press, pp. 43–75.Google Scholar
Tax, Sol (1953), Penny Capitalism. Smithsonian Institution Institute of Social Anthropology Publication no. 16. Washington: Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Ward, Edward (1938), The Yoruba Husband-Wife Code. Washington, D.C., The Catholic University of America.Google Scholar