Polygyny, Women's Land Tenure, and the "Mother-Son Partnership" in Southern Somalia

Abstract

Women in riverine agricultural villages in Somalia hold extremely limited independent access to land. After examining why this is the case, this article explores how older women with grown sons, especially senior wives in polygynous households, often strive to form collaborative working relationships with landowning sons over which the husband-father has no authority or control. Such business relationships are critical to the women involved: they provide some autonomy from the husband, an envied independent source of income, and greater food security than women in polygynous relationships normally are afforded by their husbands. The article examines the opportunities women have to form these relationships, the conditions under which they are formed, and the implications of these partnerships for family and village.