Kinship, courtship, and child maintenance law in Botswana

Abstract

Official statistics in Botswana suggest very high numbers of extramarital births and female-headed households. One element of family policy in Botswana is a statute allowing women to claim maintenance payments from the biological fathers of their extramarital children. Formal interviews and informal conversations with women and men in a village in Botswana indicate that women do not make use of the maintenance law for a variety of reasons. Among these is that a continuing tie to the biological father of the child would interferen with the traditional mechanisms by which that child is supported and socially positioned and with the woman's own prospects for courtship and eventual marriage to the biological father or another man. Family policies should fit within, rather than being imposed upon, the cultural framework of the people they are trying to help.