hat the position carries with it preferential treatment for the offspring. The notion that mothers in polygynous unions develop extraordinary close ties with their children because of the father’s absence is not supported (Tucker). Although an African husband can expect to have his wife or wives supporting themselves and working for him, he has very little claim to his children. Female farming and polygyny are nearly always coupled with “matrilineal descent,” meaning that heritage is traced only through the mother’s line. Often children bear their mother’s name. The result is that marriages are relatively transient and divorce is common. In African divorce, the husband obtains certain domestic and sexual services from the wife, but her other loyalties and her offspring always belong to her lineage (meaning her natal family). If there is divorce, the lineage will care for her and her children. She is not “absorbed” into her husband’s lineage. In Stanleyville (the Congo), well over half of those who had been married had also been divorced. According to one calculation, Hausa women (in Nigeria) average about three marriages between puberty and menopause. Eight out of ten persons over 40 years of age in a Yao village (Nyasaland) were found to have been divorced. In the Voltaic group of the Mossi, men who have migrated to neighboring Ghana may establish households with the Ashanti women but avoid marriage because the Ashanti matrilineal descent pattern would not let them take their own children back with them. In patrilineal or “dual descent” societies, by contrast, marriages are stable. Illegitimacy is also regarded differently since children belong to the mother’s line anyway. Early illegitimacy can even have a positive aspect, since it proves fertility. (Malinowski 1962) Some believe that polygyny is linked with HIV and Hepatitis C. In places like Rwanda and Burundi, polygy...
