Centre for Policy on Ageing



African widows — anthropological and historical perspectives
Author(s)	Maria G Cattell
Journal title	Journal of Women & Aging, vol 15, no 2/3, 2003
Pages	pp 49-66
Source	http://www.tandfonline.com
Keywords	Widows ; Economic status [elderly] ; Anthropological studies ; Africa ; Kenya.
Annotation	This article explores the socio-economic and cultural contexts of African widowhood, using anthropological studies in a number of African societies, including the author's research among Abaluyia of western Kenya. Some features of African widowhood are characteristic of African women's lives regardless of their marital status: their embeddedness in kinship systems and dependence on those systems for claims to productive resources; their economic self-reliance (which does not mean prosperity); strongly gendered divisions of labour; and the pervasiveness of patriarchal gender relations. Other features are specific to widowhood, including remarriage, issues of personal autonomy and loss of status, access to productive resources and social support. An interesting question considered is whether a husband's death puts African widows "on their own again" and whether, given African systems of kinship and marriage, most African women (and indeed men too) can ever be said to be "on their own". (KJ/RH).
Accession Number	CPA-040113210 A
Classmark	SP: F:W: 3FA: 7J: 7LD
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...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.