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Technology, marriage and women's work in the history of Maize‐Growers in Mazabuka, Zambia: a reconnaissance

1983; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 10; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/03057078308708068

1465-3893

Marcia Wright,

Agriculture and Rural Development Research

This paper concerns the ways in which marriage patterns and command of capital resources, agricultural implements in particular, have been linked in Mazabuka, southern Zambia, where the polygynous nuclear family has emerged as a manifestation of successful commercial farming. 1 The aim is essentially historical: to retrieve something of the situation of family and production in the early years of the twentieth century; to follow the rise of paternal power as it won out in a struggle for accumulation, at the expense of matrilineal claims; and to see how this power has been strengthened by the unwaged labour of wives. It is both a reconnaissance and a call for more research. Amidst the wealth of writings that chart the rise and exploits of the Tonga maize growers, those by Elizabeth Colson and Patrick Mbulo are exceptional in revealing the relations of production and control of wealth within the family.2 There are other strengths in the literature, particularly the dissertations of Vickery and Dixon-Fyle which are based on extensive archival research,3 and the technical writings by agriculturalists and allied social scientists.4 These works leave us in no doubt about the outline of African commercial farming in Mazabuka, which commenced just