Marriage Among a Matrilineal Elite
A Family Study of Ghanaian Senior Civil Servants

A study of conjugal and kin relationships in a group of urban, educated West Africans, Akan Senior Civil Servants in Accra.

Christine Oppong (Author)

9780521093187, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 8 January 2009

224 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.3 cm, 0.34 kg

'A classic of African family sociology now back in print, waited for. A crucial link between anthropology and current sociology of the field.' Goran Therborn, University of Cambridge and author of Between Sex and Power: Family in the World, l900–2000

A study of conjugal and kin relationships in a group of urban, educated West Africans, Akan Senior Civil Servants in Accra. As well as representing a contribution to the growing body of data on marriage and family life in West Africa, the book is an exercise in methodology in which the aim has been to evolve ways of documenting and comparing two major aspects of conjugal family relationships: the division of labour, resources and power between spouses, and the extent to which the conjugal family is a functionally discrete unit in a number of domestic activity areas. This documentation and analysis leads to the examination of marital continuity and change among urban migrants from a region characterised by matrilineal descent and inheritance.

1. The problem
2. Custom and innovation
3. Government servants and kinsmen
4. The allocation of resources
5. Power and decision-making
6. Tension and change.

Subject Areas: Anthropology [JHM]