Against the Odds

Abstract

■ The people of the Shire Highlands in southern Malawi (with origins in Nyanja, Mang'anja, Yao, and Lomwe-speaking groups) practise a form of matriliny, including matrilineal descent and inheritance and uxorilocal mar riage, that has proven remarkably resilient in the face of direct and indirect chal lenges. These include misperceptions and prejudices about matriliny by Christian missions and European travellers; the promotion of a patriarchal nuclear family by Christian and Islamic missions, by government policies, and by estate tenancy; the attack on matriliny by the agricultural development policies of the 1940s and 1950s; and the privileging of men in extension of agricultural and other services by colonial and post-colonial governments. Today, the con tinued predominance of matriliny in village life provides considerable range for women's authority, especially with respect to land inheritance, and continues to provide the necessary matrix within which 'household' or elementary family based on marriage operates.