article
Women, marginality and the Zulu state: women's institutions and power in the early nineteenth century
Journal of African history • 39 (3) • Published In 1998 • Pages: 389-415
By: Hanretta, Sean.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
This study argues that social, cultural, and material conditions of women became highly stratified during the early nineteenth century. Potential for both exploitation and the acquisition of power and prestige increased as women's lives became integrated into the Zulu state. Changes in women's status and roles were not only the result of state centralization, but an important source of power which kings used to try to maintain control over lineage elites. As a result, struggles for political power between Zulu kings and lineage elites played a large role in women's lives, affecting the degree of stratification in general, as well as determining in part the fate of individual women. While some fundamental elements of the cultural construction of masculinity and feminity remained constant throughout this period and shaped the ways in which socio-economic changes were experienced, certain roles began to be seen as determined by women's social and political association rather than as inhering in the nature of the female body. Individual women responded in a variety of ways to try to minimize losses in power or status and to capitalize on new opportunities; but women also initiated more coherent society-wide changes. Growing dissatisfaction among women with the extent of state interference in personal relationships or with the disparity between their own status and that of royal and favored women may have brought about one of the most important changes in Zulu religious history: the appearance of women as dominant members of the class of diviners (p. 415).
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Theoretical orientation in research and its results
- Sociocultural trends
- Gender status
- Regulation of marriage
- Mode of marriage
- Lineages
- Chief executive
- Executive household
- Gender roles and issues
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Zulu
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2005
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Africa
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Southern 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.
- Ethnologist
- 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.
- 4: Excellent Secondary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- John Beierle ; 2004
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- no date
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- ca.1800-1890s
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- South Africa
- NotesAdditional notes
- by Sean Hanretta
- Includes bibliographical references
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 63005723
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Zulu (African people)