Board of Trustees, Boston University

Wives for Cattle: Bridewealth and Marriage in Southern Africa by Adam Kuper; Oppressionand Resistance: The Struggle of Women in Southern Africa by Richard E. Lapchick; StephanieUrdangReview by: Margaret StrobelThe International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 16, No. 2 (1983), pp. 318-320Published by: Boston University African Studies CenterStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/217812 .

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318 BOOK REVIEWS 318 BOOK REVIEWS

this work presents us with an unsatisfactory agglomeration of aspects of that broader context, of which Cape colonialism and merchant capital are the most common.

Even with these limitations, this is an important and welcome book. The formidable task of preparing the way for a new interpret- ive essay on southern Africa, set by the editors themselves, has come close to success. Using the particularly difficult medium of a collection of diverse essays this book manages to demonstrate a fundamental shift in scholarly paradigms in relation to nineteenth- century South Africa. This has been achieved, not by a uniform approach or by consensus on all issues, but by a general concern with the "socio-economic basis of societies and its relationship to ideology and politics" (p. 3). As such, these essays constitute the largest single collection of material from what is generally known as the revisionist school, and will become required reading for anyone concerned with the history of the sub-continent.

PETER RICHARDSON

University of Melbourne

WIVES FOR CATTLE: BRIDEWEALTH AND MARRIAGE IN SOUTHERN AFRICA. By Adam Kuper. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982. Pp. xiii, 202. $24.95.

OPPRESSION AND RESISTANCE: THE STRUGGLE OF WOMEN IN SOUTHERN AFRICA. By Richard E. Lapchick and Stephanie Urdang . Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982. Pp. xxiv, 197. $25.00.

These two books treat women in Southern Africa from vastly different

perspectives. Wives for Cattle draws upon ethnographic materials from roughly 1900 to 1940 and makes only passing reference to the

impact of industrialization and the incorporation of African peoples into the apartheid system (pp. 55, 162-163). Oppression and Resist- ance draws few connections to the past (outside the rubric of resistance campaigns), even when it discusses the lives of rural women. Lapchick and Urdang are interested in women's experiences. Kuper is concerned with explaining the variations in the bridewealth

system in Southern Africa; the effect of the operation of these

practices on women who are exchanged for cattle is barely explored. Moreover, oppression is a central concept in Lapchick and

Urdang's study; it is irrelevant to Kuper's. The former authors document the tremendous toll that apartheid takes on women: discrim-

inatory wages based on both racism and sexism, pass laws, inability to live with husbands and children, poor mental and physical health, malnutrition, and banishment to Bantustans that are incapable of supporting the population. Oppression of women is seen as being integrally linked to exploitation based on class and race. It is the concept of oppression that gives this work its force and makes it valuable for educators and organizers. In contrast, Kuper's study, although it speaks of hierarachy and stratification based on sex, ethnicity, and wealth, does not view bridewealth as a mechanism of exploitation or oppression. He only occasionally reflects upon the

this work presents us with an unsatisfactory agglomeration of aspects of that broader context, of which Cape colonialism and merchant capital are the most common.

Even with these limitations, this is an important and welcome book. The formidable task of preparing the way for a new interpret- ive essay on southern Africa, set by the editors themselves, has come close to success. Using the particularly difficult medium of a collection of diverse essays this book manages to demonstrate a fundamental shift in scholarly paradigms in relation to nineteenth- century South Africa. This has been achieved, not by a uniform approach or by consensus on all issues, but by a general concern with the "socio-economic basis of societies and its relationship to ideology and politics" (p. 3). As such, these essays constitute the largest single collection of material from what is generally known as the revisionist school, and will become required reading for anyone concerned with the history of the sub-continent.

PETER RICHARDSON

University of Melbourne

WIVES FOR CATTLE: BRIDEWEALTH AND MARRIAGE IN SOUTHERN AFRICA. By Adam Kuper. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982. Pp. xiii, 202. $24.95.

OPPRESSION AND RESISTANCE: THE STRUGGLE OF WOMEN IN SOUTHERN AFRICA. By Richard E. Lapchick and Stephanie Urdang . Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982. Pp. xxiv, 197. $25.00.

These two books treat women in Southern Africa from vastly different

perspectives. Wives for Cattle draws upon ethnographic materials from roughly 1900 to 1940 and makes only passing reference to the

impact of industrialization and the incorporation of African peoples into the apartheid system (pp. 55, 162-163). Oppression and Resist- ance draws few connections to the past (outside the rubric of resistance campaigns), even when it discusses the lives of rural women. Lapchick and Urdang are interested in women's experiences. Kuper is concerned with explaining the variations in the bridewealth

system in Southern Africa; the effect of the operation of these

practices on women who are exchanged for cattle is barely explored. Moreover, oppression is a central concept in Lapchick and

Urdang's study; it is irrelevant to Kuper's. The former authors document the tremendous toll that apartheid takes on women: discrim-

inatory wages based on both racism and sexism, pass laws, inability to live with husbands and children, poor mental and physical health, malnutrition, and banishment to Bantustans that are incapable of supporting the population. Oppression of women is seen as being integrally linked to exploitation based on class and race. It is the concept of oppression that gives this work its force and makes it valuable for educators and organizers. In contrast, Kuper's study, although it speaks of hierarachy and stratification based on sex, ethnicity, and wealth, does not view bridewealth as a mechanism of exploitation or oppression. He only occasionally reflects upon the

This content downloaded from 194.29.185.106 on Fri, 9 May 2014 10:35:30 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

BOOK REVIEWS 319

extent to which women exercise power or not in the context of bride- wealth: whether the Lovedu system is a "women's lib version of the Sotho-Tswana model" or "rather more the sort of thing that the women's movement derides as 'tokenism"' (p. 76). But how women fare as recipients, negotiators, or objects of bridewealth is of little concern.

Lapchick and Urdang's work is an important addition to the material on contemporary Southern African women. Its level, if not its price, makes it accessible to a general audience. The authors have drawn from United Nations documents; South African newspapers, research reports, government policy statements; and interviews with participants in the various resistance activities documented. As a revision of papers prepared for the World Conference of the United Nations Decade for Women in Copenhagen in 1980, the work's focus is the present apartheid system and efforts to abolish it.

The book's weaknesses derive largely from this format and from the lack of more extensive research and data. For example, the sec- tion on health is skimpy, because data are not available. Yet the authors did not use other research relating to mental illness that discusses the role of spirit possession in helping to alleviate the strains resulting from labor migration. A second weakness is the imbalance of material: we are given background on apartheid in South Africa and Namibia, which helps put the chapters on resistance in context. However, the chapter on the role of women in the liberation struggle in Zimbabwe is included under resistance, without adequate attention to the oppression of women before liberation.

More serious is the need for greater analysis in understanding the resistance struggles. These chapters appropriately applaud the efforts of women in attacking apartheid. But we need more analysis: Why do the movements in Namibia (pp. 110-111) and Zimbabwe (p. 102) talk more of the oppression of women within traditional values and practices? Is it because the South African movements are more urban- oriented? If so, why do they not address urban inequalities that derive from traditional practices that remain - the responsibility of women as primary caretakers of children, for example.

A further inadequacy appears in the discussion of the trade unions. The important point is made that trade unions played a cru- cial role in developing female leadership for other resistance struggles. Many of these trade unionists in the early years were white women, whose role should be included. Yet we hear little or nothing of the background of their decision to become involved; the background information provided largely deals with black women. Finally, apparently contradictory ideas are presented in the inter- views with two of these trade unionists, Bettie du Toit and Harriet Bolton. It is confusing to argue, without greater explanation, that the same commitment to family contributes to trade union conscious- ness for African and white women (who presumably provided necessi- ties for their families too) but limits working class solidarity among white working men (pp. 122-123). If the point can't be resolved, it should at least be noted.

Despite these criticisms, I have found Oppression and Resistance to be a useful source of data that is hard to locate elsewhere. Its shortcomings are rooted largely in the lack of research on South African women from which to draw.

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320 BOOK REVIEWS 320 BOOK REVIEWS

In contrast, Kuper's Wii)es for CattZe is an attempt to reconcile and put into an explanatory framework the relatively large amounts of ethnographic detail on bridewealth among Southern Bantu socie- ties. More generally, he seeks to explain the transformations in the institutions of bridewealth within the area and "presents a model of the way in which any cultural tradition generates various local systems" (p. 157). Representing ten years of research and writing on these questions, the book carefully lays out competing explanations of phenomena and provides case studies for examining the variety. Kuper concludes that the variation in local bridewealth systems can be explained by three factors: the relative importance of pastoral- ism and agriculture in the local economy, kinship, and politics, especially political stratification.

In other chapters Kuper analyses the symbolic representations of the bridewealth systems in the form of wedding ceremonies ahd the spatial organization of homesteads. In conclusion, he ventures the hypothesis that "bridewealth payments in cattle are economically rational transfers in mixed pastoral-agricultural economies" (p. 168) and that "Southern African bridewealth systems may serve as mechanisms for the transfer of resources from one sphere of produc- tion to another" (p. 169).

It is an instructive book, not only for what it says about bridewealth, but for how it lays out theoretical arguments and debates in social anthropology germane to the topic. Historians will chafe at the use of the ethnographic present. Despite the early warning that the material concerns the pre-industrial period, it is

misleading and confusing. One page 12, a tradition from a 1905 source is described in the present tense ("corn is scattered") and that from a 1943 source is in the past tense ("cattle were not as relatively prestigious").

MARGARET STROBEL

University of Illinois at Chicago

CLASS AND ECONOMIC CHANGE IN KENYA: THE MAKING OF AN AFRICAN PETITE- BOURGEOISIE, 1905-1970. By Gavin Kitching. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980. Pp. xx, 479. $42.50.

This massive, even daunting, book is a major contribution to modern African studies. It grapples with a host of large problems, most of which deal with the processes of social change under colonialism. Although in my view it is far better in its individual parts than its sum, it is a work that can be read with much profit.

The main thesis can be stated simply. The many and varied pre- colonial African societies living in what later became Kenya colony witnessed the emergence of a particularly privileged elite (referred to as a petite bourgeoisie) during the colonial period. The avenues to economic and political advancement were several. In general, however, they entailed gaining access to high-paying off-farm income

In contrast, Kuper's Wii)es for CattZe is an attempt to reconcile and put into an explanatory framework the relatively large amounts of ethnographic detail on bridewealth among Southern Bantu socie- ties. More generally, he seeks to explain the transformations in the institutions of bridewealth within the area and "presents a model of the way in which any cultural tradition generates various local systems" (p. 157). Representing ten years of research and writing on these questions, the book carefully lays out competing explanations of phenomena and provides case studies for examining the variety. Kuper concludes that the variation in local bridewealth systems can be explained by three factors: the relative importance of pastoral- ism and agriculture in the local economy, kinship, and politics, especially political stratification.

In other chapters Kuper analyses the symbolic representations of the bridewealth systems in the form of wedding ceremonies ahd the spatial organization of homesteads. In conclusion, he ventures the hypothesis that "bridewealth payments in cattle are economically rational transfers in mixed pastoral-agricultural economies" (p. 168) and that "Southern African bridewealth systems may serve as mechanisms for the transfer of resources from one sphere of produc- tion to another" (p. 169).

It is an instructive book, not only for what it says about bridewealth, but for how it lays out theoretical arguments and debates in social anthropology germane to the topic. Historians will chafe at the use of the ethnographic present. Despite the early warning that the material concerns the pre-industrial period, it is

misleading and confusing. One page 12, a tradition from a 1905 source is described in the present tense ("corn is scattered") and that from a 1943 source is in the past tense ("cattle were not as relatively prestigious").

MARGARET STROBEL

University of Illinois at Chicago

CLASS AND ECONOMIC CHANGE IN KENYA: THE MAKING OF AN AFRICAN PETITE- BOURGEOISIE, 1905-1970. By Gavin Kitching. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980. Pp. xx, 479. $42.50.

This massive, even daunting, book is a major contribution to modern African studies. It grapples with a host of large problems, most of which deal with the processes of social change under colonialism. Although in my view it is far better in its individual parts than its sum, it is a work that can be read with much profit.

The main thesis can be stated simply. The many and varied pre- colonial African societies living in what later became Kenya colony witnessed the emergence of a particularly privileged elite (referred to as a petite bourgeoisie) during the colonial period. The avenues to economic and political advancement were several. In general, however, they entailed gaining access to high-paying off-farm income

This content downloaded from 194.29.185.106 on Fri, 9 May 2014 10:35:30 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions