Marital Relations in the Jos Plateau of Nigeria: Women's Weapons: The Politics of Domesticity among the Kofyar

Abstract

Women in Kofyar society appear to have considerable independence and social power though their institutionalized roles in patrilineal kin groups and village politics are minimal, they own little property, they marry virilocally, and they play a subordinate part in religious observances. They do, however, make important economic decisions in allocating their own incomes and labor services. They also have the right to either terminate their marriages or to accept lovers in a socially recognized relationship. With a relatively unimportant sexual division of labor and limited marital and economic control, husbands are able to achieve little domestic authority over their wives. There are some indications that male distinctness and dominance are asserted chiefly, though not entirely successfully, in symbolic terms through sex‐segregated rites and ritual injunctions. [West Africa, Kofyar, sex roles, marital stability, divorce]