Understanding Black Households in Southern Africa: The African Kinship and Western Nuclear Family Systems
Working Paper
2004
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Centre for Social Science Research
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University of Cape Town
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Abstract
Households can be taken for granted in the West because the nuclear family system with its bilateral descent ensures a fairly standard pattern of coresidence, with predictable patterns of pooling resources. In contemporary southern Africa, the tradition of patrilineal descent entails a much wider set of options for co-residence as relatives disperse to make a living in the new global economy. The agnatic idiom continues to give coherence to volatile contingent Black households. The paper traces the distinctive historical roots of Western and African households and argues against the assumption that black South Africans are engaged in some sort of transition to a Western pattern.
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Reference:
Russell, M. (2004). Understanding black households in Southern Africa: The African kinship and Western nuclear family systems. Centre for Social Science Research, University of Cape Town.