Cultural Value Systems Vis-à-vis the “West” and Sub-Saharan Africa: Family Ties, Marriage, Polygamy, Fertility and the Role of Women
Cultural
Value Systems Vis-à-vis the “West” and Sub-Saharan Africa:
Family
Ties, Marriage, Polygamy, Fertility and the Role of Women
Sub-Saharan
Africa is a region that is diversely significant in the world of geography. Understanding
the cultural geography of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is, thus, fundamental to
understanding the geography of the region, which include its political
situation, its medical geography, its population dilemma, and the current
development crisis (Aryeeteh-Attoh et al, 2003). We cannot fully discuss the
cultural value systems, which include the family organizational patterns, the
institution of marriage and fertility as well as the role of women without
briefly discussing the effects of colonialism and western influences in the region.
This paper seeks to address the similarities and differences between cultural
value systems in SSA and those of the West precisely Europe and North America. The
paper shall also compare and contrast cultures in the West and SSA in relations
to family ties, marriage and polygamy.
The colonization of countries
in SSA helped in the process of shaping the regional political, social,
cultural, educational, economic, religious and environmental landscapes. The
colonization period disintegrated the social, cultural, political, religious
and educational landscape of the region shaping it to what we have today. Poverty,
diseases, hunger, ethnic tensions and political upheavals are widespread
throughout SSA, partly because of the negative influences and ideologies that
Western powers instituted in the region before the decolonization or
post-colonial period begun. This ideology were rooted in extreme hatred, evil
and the perception of the “civilizing mission” of the West against those they
claimed to be barbarians and salvages, which is hugely the fundamental cause of
Africa’s problems today. Now, let us
compare and contrast cultural value systems in SSA to that of the West (Europe
and North America).
Studying
the cultures of SSA is not only limited to the geographic landscape of the
region in which people interact, but it is also “studying the culture of a
group of people which involves evaluating their way of life, how they live,
what clothes they wear, what food they eat, their customary habits, belief
systems, speech patterns, and value systems” (Aryeeteh-Attoh et al, 2003). The
family is an important aspect of the culture in most African countries. In SSA,
people practice the extended family system in which the family is composed of
the father, mother, children plus other relatives. Unlike in western countries,
family ties are limited to the nuclear family system in which the immediate
family is center around the father, mother and children. There are social reasons
why family ties in each of these regions vary. The culture, economy, education,
and social value systems of these regions play an important role in shaping how
their family is composed. For example, in the United States and in most West
European nations where the nuclear family system is widely practice are more developed
economically. As a result, people tend to have smaller families as possible. Generally,
children in more developed or industrialized nations are considered as
liabilities as oppose to SSA where children are consider assets. Even though
some Christian denominations do promote polygamy in the United States and
elsewhere in Europe (Mormonism), monogamy is widely practiced. Europeans and
North Americans tend to have fewer children (2.5 TFR) than those in Sub-Saharan
Africa where the Total Fertility Rate is higher is five or above (TFR 5+). However,
this varies from country to country and from region to region, which is highly
rooted in cultures, belief systems, and the national and local economy.
Notwithstanding, in some
countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, having more children is a symbolic
representation of wealth, power and socioeconomic status. Children assist their
parents with farm work and get involved in activities that bring about wealth. Children
in SSA serves as the labor force in the means of production; whereas, in the US
and Europe children are widely considered liability to their parents and the
economy until they turn eighteen years old when they can legally live by
themselves (18 yrs).
In Africa, children tend to
take care of their parents when they are older, because that is what their
culture requires of them; whereas, in the United States and some Europe
countries there is a separation between parents and children. Parents in their
old ages tend to rely on the government’s social service programs such as their
Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to replace the protection and care they
should have gotten from their children. This can lead to wider gaps in family
cohesiveness and love. In Africa, people feel cooperative and together because
they always see each other. In the West precisely the United States and other
European countries, people are more individualistic and competitive and this
account for the high rate of suicide cases and violent crimes, such as domestic
abuses.
Education is also a factor that
account for both the role of women in the family as well as at the national
levels. Over the past fifty-nine years (59), when most countries in SSA became
independent the role of women were limited to household work, farming,
gathering firewood, fetching water as well as preparing food for the family. Women
were not encouraged to seek education as the men were. As a result, the
illiteracy rate amongst women and girls became higher. On the other hand, in
the United States and European countries women sought education just as men did
and became to work on jobs that men did. The roles of women were not limited to
parenting as in the case of women in Africa. This was highly due to their
culture, government policies, and active civil rights organizations that
protested for gender equality, social justice and social change. Today, Africa
and precisely Sub-Saharan Africa is also undergoing drastic transformation on
the issue of women role on local, national and global matters.
To conclude, countries in SSA
are doing their best in transitioning from an agrarian economic system to an
industrial system; however, this is going to take centuries for most countries
in the region to attain. In order to attain progress, the development of
international partnerships, effective government policies and programs to meet
the needs of the common people as well as good governance, reduce corruption, widespread
education and empowerment initiatives for women and girl and effective health
care programs and policies are some of the ways to achieve these progress. The
region will experience widespread geographic transformation in its total fertility
rate and the role of women by building on the above mentioned structural, functional
and operational frameworks.
Work
Cited
Aryeeteh-Attoh, S. et al,
(2003), “Geography of Sub-Saharan Africa.”
3rd Ed. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2003.
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