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| Title: | Customary Bride-Price in Cameroon: Do Women Have a Say? |
| Author: | Hamisu, Danpullo Rabiatu Ibrahim |
| Year: | 2000 |
| Periodical: | SAFERE: Southern African Feminist Review (ISSN 1024-9451) |
| Volume: | 4-5 |
| Issue: | 2-1 |
| Pages: | 65-71 |
| Language: | English |
| Notes: | biblio. refs. |
| Geographic terms: | Cameroon West Africa |
| Subjects: | bridewealth women Cultural Roles Marital Relations and Nuptiality gender Bride price customary law women's rights gender discrimination |
| External link: | https://www.ajol.info/index.php/safere/article/view/23930 |
| Abstract: | Using data from the North-West Province of Cameroon from the Baba clan customary law, the author discusses the institution of bride-price and the adverse effects it has on the position of women. For instance the name for the institution in Baba is 'Weeh-Yingwi', literally meaning the worth of two slaves. Bride-price can be paid in the form of cash or of services and the general upshot is that women are regarded by their husbands as labourers, who can work the land but have no rights to it. In Cameroon it is true that, while the practice is recognized under Statutory Law, it is not enforced. Its observation is much more a matter of the force of social sanctions regarded as shoring up social stability. Despite its continued prevalence, it carries many inherent disadvantages for women. It leads to child betrothals, forced marriages, women having to repay the sum in the event of divorce and having no claim to their children, fathers loathing to spend money on educating daughters who will just be labourers for their husbands, and widows simply becoming the property of the next dominant male. Notes, sum. [ASC Leiden abstract] |