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Female Mobility and Postmarital Kin Access in a Patrilocal Society

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Abstract

Across a wide variety of cultural settings, kin have been shown to play an important role in promoting women’s reproductive success. Patrilocal postmarital residence is a potential hindrance to maintaining these support networks, raising the question: how do women preserve and foster relationships with their natal kin when propinquity is disrupted? Using census and interview data from the Himba, a group of semi-nomadic African pastoralists, I first show that although women have reduced kin propinquity after marriage, more than half of married women are visiting with their kin at a given time. Mobility recall data further show that married women travel more than unmarried women, and that women consistently return to stay with kin around the time of giving birth. Divorce and death of a spouse also trigger a return to living with kin, leading to a cumulative pattern of kin coresidence across the lifespan. These data suggest that patrilocality may be less of a constraint on female kin support than has been previously assumed.

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Acknowledgments

This work has been generously funded by the UCLA Center for the Study of Women, and a UCLA Faculty Research Grant. Drafts of the manuscript were greatly improved by comments and discussions with Monique Borgerhoff Mulder, Steve Josephson and three reviewers. My research assistant Kemuu Jakurama was indispensable and a great friend in the field. Finally, this work could not have been completed without the cooperation, friendship, and patience of the Himba families living in the Omuhonga Basin.

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  1. UCLA Department of Anthropology, 341 Haines Hall, Box 951553, Los Angeles, CA, 90095-1553, USA

    Brooke A. Scelza

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Correspondence to Brooke A. Scelza.

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Scelza, B.A. Female Mobility and Postmarital Kin Access in a Patrilocal Society. Hum Nat 22, 377–393 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-011-9125-5

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