Rural African Family Structure in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa

Abstract

The article presents findings of a study of household arrangements in the Transkei subregion of the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. The article begins by questioning persisting assumptions about African family and household structure. Households are viewed as “disorganized” and “disintegrating.” A parallel is drawn with the way the African American family has been characterized as “disorganized,” “deviant,” and “pathological” in the context of American society. Household arrangements of Africans and those in the diaspora, it is argued, are informed by a cultural value system based on the African philosophical view of life. While western nuclear family is based on the cultural value of individualism characteristic of western society, African “extended families” are based on a value system that emphasizes collectivity and interdependence. Households studied vary in household head and include a variety of kin. The household structure varies from time to time, depending on which kin are present as individuals go back and forth in their struggles to survive. The article concludes that there is no evidence that African families are going to evolve to nuclear families and calls for more systematic studies of African family and household arrangements based on the principles of social organization of the Africans, rather than some imagined universal household structure.