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Premarital Pregnancy and Native Opinion. A Note on Social Change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2012

I. Schapera
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Extract

In his recent writings on the subject of marriage and kinship, Malinowski has repeatedly emphasized what he terms the ‘principle legitimacy’. By this he means the rule, found in all human societies, that a woman has to be married before she is allowed legitimately to conceive. ‘Roughly speaking, an unmarried mother is under a ban, a fatherless child is a bastard. This is by no means only a European or Christian prejudice; it is the attitude found amongst most barbarous and savage peoples as well.’ Where prenuptial intercourse is regarded as illicit and immoral, marriage is obviously the essential prelude to the birth of legitimate children, i.e. children having full social status in the community. But even where prenuptial intercourse is tolerated, this tolerance does not extend to liberty of conception. The unmarried boys and girls may indulge freely in sex, but there must be no issue. An unmarried mother will be subjected to punishment and become the object of scorn, her child possibly killed or aborted, while often the putative father is also penalized unless he marries the girl. Almost universally, a child born out of wedlock has a different status from the legitimate offspring, usually very much to his disadvantage. Facts such as these show that the group of mother and child is considered incomplete in the eyes of the community, and that the sociological position of husband and father is everywhere felt to be indispensable.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , January 1933 , pp. 59 - 89
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1933

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References

page 59 note 1 His latest discussion appears in the essay: ‘Parenthood, the Basis of Social Structure’ (pp. 113-68 in The New Generation, edited by Calverton, V. F. and Schmalhausen, S. D.. London, 1930),Google Scholar which refers also to his previous writings on the subject.

page 60 note 1 Junod, , The Life of a South African Tribe (London, 1927), vol. i, p. 297.Google Scholar On the other hand, Eiselen says of the same tribe that free sexual play is permitted, if not actually encouraged, by Pedi public opinion. He adds, however, that the BaPedi take strong exception to children born out of wedlock and that an unmarried girl is despised if she becomes pregnant. (The Transvaal baSotho, vol. ii, Section II, of Duggan-Cronin's, Photographic Studies of the Bantu Tribes of South Africa, Cambridge, 1931, p. 42).Google Scholar

page 61 note 1 The information upon which the following notes are based was obtained in the course of several trips during the years 1929-31. I am indebted to the University of Cape Town for generously financing my work.

page 65 note 1 This statement was not made for my special benefit. At a phuthêxô (tribal gathering) called by the chief in June 1931, to frame a statement of Kxatla marriage laws in response to a request from the Bechuanaland Protectorate Administration, the older men all said that seduction of unmarried girls was something unknown in the days of their youth. ‘These things are new,’ said old Rakabane; ‘we never heard of them until recently.’

page 66 note 1 Ntoko is the girl concerned; Ntlolo and Sebaetseng are her mother and father respectively.

page 66 note 2 The verb xo ja, ‘to eat’, is also used for excessive copulation. It is said of a loose girl o jêwa ke babothle, ‘she is eaten by everybody’.