article
Premarital childbearing in northwest Kenya: challenging the concept of illegitimacy
Social biology • 46 (1-2) • Published In 1999 • Pages: 47-61
By: Shell-Duncan, Bettina, Wimmer, Matthew.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
This article discusses the social and cultural context that made premarital fertility widespread and socially acceptable among the Turkana. The most important of this concerns the meaning of marriage which in Turkana is not a social trigger for the onset and continuation of reproduction or a means for legitimate reproduction. Marital status of the parents simply determines the custody of a child. In a premarital birth, the father pays a set fee to the mother's family, and the custody of the child remains permanently with the mother's family. If the parents later marry, the father must purchase custody of the child by another fee at that time. The authors take the legitimacy of this practice to suggest that cultural factors must be taken into account before assessing premarital fertility across cultures as a social problem.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Illegitimacy
- Social placement
- Regulation of marriage
- Mode of marriage
- Basis of marriage
- Nuptials
- Residence
- Premarital sex relations
- Ethos
- Cultural identity and pride
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Turkana
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2010
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Africa
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Eastern Africa
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- article
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Anthropologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- Teferi Abate Adem; 2009
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1980-1996
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1980-1999
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Turkana, Kenya
- NotesAdditional notes
- Bettina Shell-Duncan and Matthew Wimmer
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 60-61)
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 74648879
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Turkana (African people)