adminEach one of them played particular roles and functions. A good example is that women were agriculturalists and men were pastoralists and hunters. Women were usually dominant in the domestic and private spheres while men exercised authority in the public sphere. Both men and women were regarded and treated as equals and of equal importance. At that time women never felt that they were oppressed or that they occupied a subordinate position in the family.
Women were highly respected because of their reproductive and productive roles. Fulfilment of these roles was therefore a source of pride and status for the woman. Failure to provide any offspring was regarded as failure on the part of the woman. This forced other women to ask their younger sisters into the marriage.
Traditionally, when a woman got married, then the cattle or the wealth received provided in turn the means for her brother to marry. The woman, through her marriage, therefore ensured continuity of her clan. A woman therefore was highly respected and assumed a very important role in her family as well as a source of advice and information to her brother’s family and offspring. The aunt played a crucial role as arbitrator in her brother’s marriage disputes. She also exercised authority over her brother’s children. The aunt (vatete) also acted as intermediary between father and children.
The aunt also trained and prepared her brother’s daughters for marriage. This role has since diminished in our society today. The aunt made sure that from a very tender age, her brother’s daughters are taught about womanhood. Even when a man proposed to the latter, the two exchanged gifts (nhumbi) or pledges at the aunt’s place. When the man indicated his intention to marry, the brother’s daughter also informed the paternal aunt. It was the aunt who checked the matter carefully, checking that his totem-praise names were different to their own, that his character was good and that his family had satisfactory history and reputation. These procedures are slowly diminishing as well.
After the payment of the bride price, it was the paternal aunt who would then accompany her brother’s daughter to her prospective husband’s home. The aunt would take with her millet meal, a fowl and a calabash of oil (chinu). The oil was to be used the next day after washing each of the husband’s relatives’ faces with warm water. This was done in addition to other traditional rituals that were done by the paternal aunt and her brother’s daughter. It was only after all these rituals that the husband was now permitted to sleep with his new wife.
When the new daughter-in-law fell pregnant, the paternal aunt also played a critical role when the husband brought a goat to his in-laws. A woman therefore had considerable authority and had to intervene in the family in terms of maltreatment, divorce and widowhood. The respect and authority of women continued until late adulthood.
In the book, A Decade of Development in Zimbabwe 1980-1990, it is highlighted that the grandmother held a prestigious position and once past child-bearing, the grandmother prepared the beer for rituals and was also a source of information and guidance.
The advent of colonisation brought about a paradigm shift in terms of roles and responsibilities for men and women. The white settlers brought with them their own cultural values, norms and beliefs. This in turn brought changes in all aspects of traditional culture especially in the economic sphere. The position and roles of the rural women in their families and in the communities changed. Male dominance was viewed as “normal” and men became drawn to the monetary system of the settlers and shifted to migrant workers.
The prestige and worthiness that was once bestowed on women started to slowly diminish as she struggled to come to terms with her increased workload, hampered by lack of knowledge of modern farming methods, lack of ownership of farming implements and lack of access to credit for agricultural inputs. Above all, the women had low literacy levels which further hampered her business transaction. Apart from that, men and women were separated for almost the whole year. The men could only visit their wives once or twice a year.
The social relations between families also started to dwindle as people started to adopt a more individualistic and capitalistic approach to both their social and economic status. With the diminishing cattle herds, and in the case of young men, the complete lack of cattle resulted in money being used as lobola. This has resulted in many families overcharging (the lobola) and demanding huge sums thereby contradicting the essence of what marriage entailed.
This paradigm shift affected the traditional role of women as aunts. Failure to provide cattle for latter use by her brother in marriage meant diminishing roles and authority within her brother’s family. Nowadays the role the aunt plays has been taken over by the church and to a lesser extent by mothers. It is the pastor’s wife and other women in the church who give advice to the prospective bride and society has also questioned the “value” of these kitchen tea parties since they are impromptu. The aunt gave advice over the years and maybe that is the reason why marriages lasted over the years unlike nowadays when cases of divorce are on the increase and marriages always on the verge of collapse.
The aunts taught women to preserve, respect husbands as heads of families, and encouraged their brothers’ daughters to satisfy their husbands in bed. They also encouraged women to be secretive about what was happening in a marriage and to love and respect their husbands’ relatives including their mothers-in-law and aunts. Nowadays the inclusion of other relatives in the basic domestic unit has totally become non-viable in economic terms. Even the idea of having too many children is no longer a source of increased status.
It is important to note however that the advent of independence in Zimbabwe has assisted the populace to observe that there cannot be true democracy without the involvement of women in the social, political and economic spheres. It is therefore important for women to have access to the country’s resources such as health, education and the land so that they can develop their own capabilities to the maximum.
- The writer is the provincial development officer for Bulawayo in the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Gender and Community Development. She can be contacted on 0772111592 / 09- 889224 or [email protected]
derick.khumalo