Bridewealth,Women’s Subordination and Agency in Marriage: An ethnographic critique of gender activism in rural north-western Ghana

Introduction

In this article, we explore the role of the marriage payment in producing women’s identities and in oppressing them and the challenges such imperialist proposals as dismantling the practice of the conjugal payment engender for the status of women and children in the postcolonial settings of the Dagaaba. The institution of marriage is an indispensable one across Africa, including amongst the Dagaaba people in northern Ghana. Marriage is the basis for extending Dagaaba’s patrilineal system and for sustaining it. It is the means through which the status of individuals who are born into the families attain legitimacy (Dery, 1987; Dery, 2013; Dery and Bawa, 2019; Dolphyne, 1991; Kpiebaya, 1991). Consequently, any member of the family who is born outside a legitimate marriage is called sensembie, that is, a child begotten out of conjugal practices. Such a child has limited rights, for instance, a male child may not become a tendaana. ¹

The practice of bridewealth, kyeuri, used interchangeably with marriage/conjugal payment and bride price in this article, occupies a central position in the marriage process amongst many ethnicities across sub-Saharan Africa, including amongst Dagaaba cultural groups (Behrends, 2002; Horne et al., 2013; Kpiebaya, 1991; Posel and Rudwick, 2014). Marriage amongst the Dagaaba people is not complete until the bridewealth is paid to the woman’s family. Bridewealth may be described as gifts/goods which are passed by the groom’s family to the bride’s kin (Goody and Tambiah, 1973; Tambiah, 1989). The payment of bridewealth together with the exogamous marriage pattern put Dagaaba women in a markedly subservient position to men. Indeed, the bridewealth has been perceived as the source of women’s oppression by various writers in Ghana and across Africa (Abdul-Korah, 2014; Dery, 2013; Dery and Bawa, 2019; Dolphyne, 1991). Yet, bridewealth gives legitimacy to marriages as well as the children born within that union in Dagaaba settings and across northern Ghana more broadly (Behrends, 2002; Kpiebaya, 1991). Dagaaba women occupy subordinate positions both in the natal family and in the marital one. In the former, women are perceived as soon-to-leave members because they are expected to marry and join the husband and his agnatic kin in his settlement. Yet in the marital family women never fully belong because they are considered as outsiders—non-linage members. In fact, in the marital family, the women are sometimes considered as ‘slaves’, yeme, bought with cowrie shells, Dagaaba bridewealth, to produce children in order to extend the patriclan of the husband and also to offer labor on the family farm (Dery and Bawa, 2019; Dolphyne, 1991; Hawkins, 2002; Tambiah, 1989). This ambivalent identity position that the Dagao woman in marriage finds herself has repercussions for women’s social positioning and their exercise of agency. In many instances, the women have no control over the children in marriage and also the farm produce despite working on the family farm (Akurugu, 2017).

But the issue of women’s subjugation is not limited to the Dagaaba settings or settlements in northern Ghana. All over the world, women occupy subordinate positions in both public and ‘private’ spheres of the home and they are oppressed in differing ways (Bunch, 2000; Jaggar, 1983; Okin, 1998). As Okin (1998) argues, ‘women are discriminated against in all of the world’s countries, both in differing and in similar ways, and to a widely varying extent’. Feminist theoretical perspectives on this subject matter give differing reasons for this subordination, marginalization and oppression. Some theorists attribute this situation to patriarchy with its attendant male dominance and hierarchy across societies in the world. Others disagree, pointing out that patriarchy is not a universal institution while women’s subjugation is (Butler, 1999; Tong, 2007, 2009). Furthermore, varied theoretical positions have been proffered to remedy the oppression of women. To liberate women from the shackles of male dominance and oppression, some feminists have proposed such radical measures as undoing the institution of heterosexual marriage and lesbianizing the whole world. If heterosexual marriage is a means to controlling women’s sexuality and reproduction, to liberate them from these restraints is to dismantle the institution of marriage (Butler, 1999; Rich, 2003; Tong, 2009; Wittig, 1980, 1982). However, the problematics with these radical proposals require analytical scrutiny; they tend to elide the specific situations and experiences of heterosexual women and also women for whom the heterosexual marriage contract is a revered institution. In the process, they install inequality exactly where they seek to dismantle it and we return to a sustained critique of these imperialist perspectives. In the context of the Dagaaba, some women’s rights activists have advocated for the undoing of the marriage payment rather than the entire marriage institution. If the bridewealth is the source of women’s oppression and the normalization of marital violence, a way out of the quagmire that it puts women in is to marry them off for free, that is, marrying women off without the conjugal payment, the advocates argue (Dery, 2013). ²

In traditional Dagaaba settings, roles, both within the domestic sphere of the home and in the community, are deeply divided along gender lines, with women and men playing distinct ones. Also, as the men and their agnatic kin pay bride price for the women during marriage, the latter are expected to work on the family farms without claiming ownership to any farm produce. The Dagaaba people believe that the produce of the family farm belongs to the man, a dↄↄ kukure boma. Furthermore, traditional Dagaaba settlements are profoundly permeated with beliefs in supernatural power forms, including beliefs in the power of the ancestors, witchcraft and magic despite the influence of Catholicism (Akurugu, 2019). Following this pervasiveness of belief in the mystical forces, the occurrence of any event, good or bad, is believed to be caused by these supernatural power forms. Also, any woman who sells the farm produce without permission from her husband or the male head of her marital family risks incurring the wrath of the ancestors, who may then punish her by killing her or causing her to fall sick, it is believed. ³ Yet, the men, largely, are at liberty to sell the farm produce even if this is for personal use. For reasons accounting for the contradictions in Dagaaba normative expectations and the general disadvantaged position occupied by women in those settlements, the research participants often alluded to the marriage payment. The participants often explained to the researchers that the woman has been bought with cowries and because of this she has no say, whereas no money is paid for the man. It is within the context of this understanding of the role of the conjugal payment in subordinating women and oppressing them that some Dagaaba women’s rights advocates, influenced by neoliberal education and religious values, privilege discourses and activism that seek to eliminate the marriage payment.

Dagaaba settlements have come under great influence and social change since the onslaught of colonialism and the introduction of religion, specifically, Catholicism, with the arrival of the missionaries of Africa in 1929. Indeed, colonialism, Christianity and Western-style education are important interlocking forces of social change in Dagaaba settings. From the 1930s, these forces and the change that attended them have profoundly transformed traditional understandings of marriage (Behrends, 2002; Hawkins, 2002; McCoy, 1988). The transformation, including in perspectives, is more so for the privileged beneficiaries of neoliberalism and, as our analysis shows, the anti-bridewealth advocates under consideration are either clergymen or members of the Catholic Church. It is thus important to note that the opposing views are filtered through these neocolonial and Judeo-Christian ideologies.

This article examines the making of women’s subordinate position, the normalized violence that they endure and the role of bridewealth in Dagaaba marriage and in societies across northern Ghana. It also discusses the problematics associated with misguided proposals as undoing the conjugal payment. This is done by drawing on ethnographic data gathered in Serekpere, a settlement in rural north-western Ghana and its environs. Based on the analysis of the field data, which highlights the importance of the marriage payment to the identities of both Dagaaba women and men, we argue that abolishing it has the deleterious potential of worsening women’s ambivalent identities in marriage since such an act implies that, customarily, women together with their children may lose legitimacy in the marital family (Behrends, 2002; Kpiebaya, 1991). It is suggested that gender justice advocacy in this context needs to be accommodating of the cultural norms and values that are so dear to the women they seek to ‘liberate’. Instead of the apparently colonizing advocacy premised on destroying the conjugal payment, this article suggests a return to traditional legal mechanisms for negotiating equity and protection for the women in marriage. The article also proposes a community responsibility for reporting wife abuse to the law-enforcing agencies. In the ensuing section we turn our attention to contemporary discourses on the oppression of women.

Women, subordination and normalized violence in society

Feminists accounts on the nature and source of women’s oppression, social subordination and normalized violence against them have drawn on different viewpoints and frameworks. Based on these works, varied perspectives have been proposed as solutions to the elimination of women’s oppression (Tong, 2009). These theoretical explanations and the suggestions as regards to the solution to women’s oppression depend on the specific strand of feminist thought under consideration—liberal, socialist, Marxist, radical, psychoanalytic, postmodern and postcolonial. Liberal feminists seek to remedy past disadvantages and unfair treatment of women by enhancing access to education, the capitalist system and employment so as to achieve gender justice. Socialist feminists seek to overthrow both the capitalist system and patriarchy as twin evils. For their part, radical feminists argue that it is an overthrow of patriarchy and its institutions such as the family and organized religion that can liberate women from the shackles it places on them. Postcolonial feminists focus on the multiple struggles of women in formally decolonized settings by challenging Western imperialism and feminist theorizing along with mis/representations of Third World women. It concerns itself with addressing local androcentric administrations and policies as well as the inequalities and injustices engendered by sociocultural norms, which women encounter (Young, 2003). The current analysis is located within a postcolonial/postmodern framework.

Wittig (1980, 1982) argues that the category of sex, woman as well as heterosexuality and the marriage contract with their forced obligation on women to submit to men and to reproduce are the sources of women’s oppression. Based on her analyses, Wittig proposes the overthrow of the categories of sex and woman. She claims that ‘the category of sex is the category that ordains slavery for women’ (1982: 68). Also, Wittig calls for an overthrow of the heterosexual marriage contract, as this is the cause of the totalitarian category of sex. Wittig and also Rich propose lesbianizing the whole world as a way out of the violence and domination of compulsory heterosexuality (Rich, 2003; Wittig, 1980, 1982). According to Wittig, woman only makes sense in relation to man. Since the lesbian, in Wittig’s view, is not a woman, she escapes the entrapment of the reductive categories of sex, woman and compulsory heterosexuality with their attendant effects (1980, 1982; see also Butler, 1999). For Rich (2003), lesbianism is ‘potentially liberating for all women’ (Rich, 2003: 36). But as Butler (1999: 58) observes, refusing heterosexual practices is in itself ‘an engagement and, ultimately, a radical dependence on the very terms that lesbianism purports to transcend’. Also, the proposal of lesbianizing the world has no place for straight women and for those for whom heterosexual union is the condition for their ontological presence and fulfillment as gendered subjects (Akurugu, 2019). It also risks installing itself as a compulsory category, exactly what it seeks to undermine—compulsory heterosexuality. Indeed, these views are imperialist (Butler, 1999) and many women in Dagaaba settlements would find this sort of perspective insensitive to their specific situation. Similarly, Rubin (1975: 199) argues that the traffic in women is a site for women’s oppression and subordination. This analysis leads her to suggest that ‘feminism must call for a revolution in kinship’ to abolish marriage and heterosexuality in order to overthrow gender and to liberate women from oppression (Rubin, 1975: 199). But the question of how gender can be overthrown is not addressed by Rubin (see Butler, 1999). If gender is not a volitional act, and if it is tightly policed by the norms that govern its performance in society, how can it be overthrown (Akurugu, 2019; Butler, 1999)? It seems Rubin’s focus here is on undoing the sex/gender binary for its reductionism. Undoing marriage, heterosexuality and gender appear to be Sisyphean tasks across societies, but more so for settlements like the Dagaaba, where heterosexual marriage is seen as the basis of society. Within the context of the Dagaaba settlements, a less onerous, nonetheless problematic, proposal has been that of Dery (2013), a Dagao priest and an influential personality in the Catholic Church in northern Ghana. Powerfully influenced, ostensibly, by his Judeo-Christian and Western-style education, Dery argued that the marriage payment is at variance with the Christian notion of equality of the marriage partners. As well, he believed that the marriage payment is the ‘root of all the injustices that women suffer’ (2013: 15). Based on this conviction, he proposed the dismantling of the conjugal payment as a way of emancipating women from ‘slavery’ and this is further examined shortly. The ensuing section examines the research methodology.

Methodology

This article relies heavily on ethnographic fieldwork conducted over a period of 12 months during 2013 and 2014 in a rural settlement known as Serekpere in north-western Ghana. Within this period, the lead author conducted participant observation, which permitted her to be immersed in the ritual and daily lives of the research participants. In addition to this, she conducted 20 in-depth interviews and two group discussions. The ethnographic data is complemented by data from five in-depth interviews conducted during the months of March and April 2020 with differently positioned women and men from such Dagaaba settlements as Kaleo, Nator and Doung in the Nadowli-Kaleo District.

Serepkere is a small settlement located along a trans-ECOWAS main road that links Ghana to the neighboring Burkina Faso. The village, which is about 10km away from Nadowli, the capital town of the Nadowli-Kaleo District, is made up of about 1100 inhabitants. The broader research from which data for this article was taken was greatly influenced by feminist ethnographic principles. As we grapple with the question of women’s subordination, we acknowledge our positionalities as privileged beneficiaries of neocolonial capitalism and as Dagaaba woman and men (either by marriage or birth) and the way these social markers influence our interpretations of the marriage practices. Acknowledging these, as we do, enables us to be wary of them and to engage critically with the participants’ perspectives. The ensuing sections discuss findings on the role of the marriage payment in forming women’s identities and challenges involved in undoing it.

Results/findings and discussion: The marriage payment and women’s ambivalent identities

Amongst the Dagaaba people, libipeԑle (cowries), fowls, tobacco and cola nuts are the main items that make up the bridewealth. There is no fixed amount offered as bride price. But in Serekpere and the neighboring settlements, an average of 2000 cowries is currently accepted as bridewealth, compared with 20,000 and over in the 1990s and earlier, according to the research participants. ⁴ Before the cowries are transferred to the bride’s kinsmen, the groom’s kin take a sample of them, usually 20, into the zagepkeng/kpeezaga, room of the dead, and offer sacrifices to the ancestors, dedicating the marriage to them and praying for the protection of and blessings for the bride and groom. This dedication sacrifice, according to the research participants, forbids a woman, once married, from copulating with another man. It bonds the bride sexually to the groom and, upon his death, she can be inherited by his kinsmen, a practice known as widowhood marriage. Any woman who sleeps with a man other than her husband becomes guilty of adultery, saanbo, literally meaning ‘spoiled’, and thus requires ‘cleansing’. She is cleansed of the ‘contagion’ only if she confesses, otherwise she and/or her husband risks contracting moↄro, a supposed supernatural sickness which eventually leads to death. Dery refers to this dedication sacrifice as ‘ratification of the slavery of the woman’ (2013: 11). This is because the sacrifice restricts women’s agency in important ways. Furthermore, for Dery, since the marriage payment is the source of women’s oppression and enslavement, to abolish it would be to give women control over their lives. Dery claims that ‘free marriage’ is the way out of the shackles that bridewealth payment places on women. Nevertheless, the issue of bride price occupies a complex and contradictory position amongst the Dagaaba people. For instance, while women easily attribute their vulnerable position to it, of all the women and men we worked with in the settlements, none of them supported the idea of free marriage. This resistance to free marriage, they argue, is because the marriage payment brings honor and legitimacy to the women and their children. Thus to undo this is to delegitimize the women and their children, further rendering tenuous the woman’s social position. These Dagaaba women’s perspectives on the bridewealth echo Dolphyne’s (1991) assertion that most women are averse to ending the marriage payment because they may be perceived by society as being worthless to their natal families. Following the dedication sacrifice, and in the company of the dendeo, marriage liaison, the man’s family carries the cowries to the woman’s kinsfolk. While taking delivery of the payment, male members of the bride’s family pay attention to the specific amount of cowries brought. This is important because, in case of divorce, they must return the cowries to the man’s family. Yet, any children in the marriage belong to the man and his agnatic kin because they are the products of a legitimate marriage.

The payment completes the marriage process. The woman now becomes a legitimate member of the marital family; women whose marriages have not been paid for are not considered properly married (see also Behrends, 2002; Kpiebaya, 1991). Subsequently, control over the woman is transferred from her agnatic kin to her husband’s family. The bride and her labor, including reproduction, are all secured by the marriage payment. Without the bridewealth there is no customarily recognized marriage (Kpiebaya, 1991). This arrangement, the transfer of control and authority over women, has negative implications for women’s agency; women are required to obtain permission from their ‘owners’ in all instances before taking any major decisions. ⁵ Those who do not comply with this normative requirement are thought of as behaving as though they own themselves, submitting to no man’s authority. These are the pog gandaba, women stigmatized as behaving in ways that are seen as more than men. The stigma attached to the pog gandao identity category has implications for women’s agency and resistance practices (see Akurugu, 2020b). Yet, in the midst of the constraints that the women in marriage come up against, they are not acquiescent victims of the male and normative expectations in Dagaaba settings. The women exercise agency and resistance in complex ways, that is, in ways that are sensitive to the contextual constraints (Akurugu, 2020a). The women’s performative practices resonate profoundly with what Nnaemeka (2004: 380) refers to as ‘Nego-feminism’ and Kandiyoti’s (1988) bargaining with patriarchy (see Akurugu, 2020a for a detailed discussion on this). Nego-feminism is based on negotiation and it challenges women’s subordination, oppression and injustice through ‘negotiation, accommodation, and compromise’. Concerning the position of the bride, she does not belong fully to her new family. This is because she is a family member but from without; her membership is not through blood and descent relations and so her loyalty to the family cannot be trusted entirely since she might one day leave (Dery, 2013). She is, however, the deԑ pↄge, the woman of the house; she is in charge of day-to-day management. The role of the marriage payment in producing subordinate identity positions for women can be seen to emerge from discussion in this section. The next section examines a brief history of the marriage payment.

Bridewealth institution: The source of women’s subordination and oppression

the so-called ‘free wives’ are in fact the women who have been freed from all the shackles that the bride price imposes on our women in marriage (Dery, 2013: vii).

The origin of the marriage payment amongst the Dagaaba, as with other oral traditions, has been a matter of much dispute. Kpiebaya (1991), a Dagao priest, suggests that prior to the introduction of the cash economy in the form of cowries and gifts, one young woman was exchanged for another in a different settlement. However, due to retaliatory punishments of brides, that is, a situation where a bride punished by her marital family led to similar punishment of a bride from her marital family who was married to her natal one, the exchange was replaced with gifts. This actually resonates with views expressed by the research participants regarding why a man may not openly reject his wife. For his part, Dery (2013) claims that traditional Dagaaba societies were based on equality of the sexes and complementarity and women used to be given out for marriage without any payment. He explains that marriage payment is as a result of the dysfunction of the norms governing connubial practices, and he describes it as ‘an accident in history’ (Dery 2013: 6). Dery writes: ‘people freely gave their daughters’ hands in marriage knowing that they would also need to take other people’s daughters to keep their houses going.’ Cowrie payments, he suggests, were a consequence of a charge levelled against a man who impregnated a kinswoman. The man was charged 360 cowries, which constitutes the main marriage payment, libi-zu, of the Dagara people further to the north of the study area. The ripple effect of this act gave rise to marriage payment. To support this assertion, Dery (2013: 9) observes that: ‘I did not press this man to tell me this. He gave me this story of his own volition and I have reason to believe that there is truth in what he is saying’ [original emphasis]. This claim, we suggest, is not enough evidence to foreground a claim as grandiose as calling an age-old practice an accident. Also, Dery’s viewpoint has not been corroborated by any other source. For the research participants, the practice of marriage payment is as old as the institution of marriage itself and this accidental story sounded outrageous to them. Second, amongst the Dagaaba, where incest is a grave taboo (Dery, 1987; Tuurey, 1982), Dery is silent on any purification rites or banishment as punishment for such a supposed sacrilegious act committed by the man. If women were given out for ‘free’, what then gave legitimacy to marriage unions? Dery does not account for this. But this ‘accidental’ story is the basis for advocacy by Dery and other clergymen and women’s rights advocates.

The subordination of women as well as the violence exacted on them as a result of the marriage payment, not only amongst the Dagaaba but throughout Ghana, with fatal consequences on occasion, requires critical attention. Thus, the labor of emancipating women from slavery and undoing marital violence is imperative; and it calls for varied and complex strategies. Nonetheless, Dery’s approach and that of the people who appropriate his ideas may be seen as acts of local elites perpetuating an imperialist project initiated by the missionaries of Africa. As evidence shows, rather than freeing the women from the shackles of bridewealth, the practice, once championed by the missionaries of Africa further shackled these so-called freed women, worsening their position in the marital family (Behrends, 2002; McCoy, 1988). Behrends (2002: 237) reports that although the women ‘lived in their husband’s homes, their new family did not regard them and their children as real members’. This was corroborated by three of the women leaders interviewed. One of them, Aabale-ma (aged 75, a retired civil servant), a ‘free wife’, explained to us in an interview that her loyalty to the marital family and settlement was questioned when she put herself up for local assembly elections. ⁶ Aabale-ma also informed us that in order to resolve the problematics that the ‘free’ marriage practice engendered for families, some husbands and kinsmen of free wives later on clandestinely paid the bridewealth to the women’s agnatic families. This payment was geared towards securing legitimacy for the women and their children. Dery and all the Dagaaba gender activists reengineering the free marriage endeavor are aware of these challenges that bedeviled earlier attempts. ‘The White Fathers had failed to recognize that the [bridewealth was] essential for determining and securing the social status and belonging of women and children, and therefore comprised important questions of responsibility for their welfare,’ notes Behrends (2002: 137). If, as non-indigenous members, the missionaries did not appreciate these complexities, how did Dery and his interlocutors also miss these? Their efforts signal a kind of paternalism being exercised by people in a position of authority and power to act in the interest of others, against the grains, we would argue.

Gender activism and theorizing in the manifestly constraining contexts of the Dagaaba need to be responsible due to the far-reaching consequences that misguided perspectives and advocacy may engender for (vulnerable) women. Dery’s ideological position has influenced other activists who seek to ‘liberate’ women from ‘slavery’ and the general constraints that the marriage payment engenders for them. Consider the perspectives of two of the research participants and the effects of Dery’s endeavor on them. The first one is Dassah, a parish priest of a Catholic church and an anti-bridewealth campaigner in the Dagaaba settings. In relation to the position of Dagaaba women in marriage, Dassah explained in an interview that:

A Dagao man always thinks that he is superior to the woman; the woman is a second-hand fiddle. But this is all because of our custom. It makes the men feel superior due to the [bridewealth]. People use the marriage payment as the basis for seeing women as property and slaves, purchased with money. ‘I bought a slave to come and be with me. So if you were not behaving properly I would beat you up’ [. . .] I think we need to abolish it by educating people to see the harm it is doing to the women in marriage. [. . .] In this sense, it is possible to have a marriage without paying [bride price].

Dassah, having served as a priest for nearly 40 years in this pervasively male-dominant setting, is critically aware of the problematics that the marriage payment creates for women. And influenced by his mentor, Dery, he believes that undoing the payment through sustained public education about the deleterious effects of this practice is the sure solution to the subordination of women in this cultural setting. Throughout the interview, Dassah repeatedly referred to the work of Dery. When asked about his own viewpoint, Dassah remarked that it was not different from that of Dery. The second activist under consideration here is Zunuong-ma, a gender activist and a former diplomat who comes from the Dagaaba settings. Zunuong-ma sponsored access to one of the women groups she had founded and worked with. As part of the introduction to the meeting, Zunuong-ma stated:

If you women agree with me, we would put a stop to it [marriage price] . . .; treating women as chattel that you have gone to the market to acquire. This marriage payment, we would stop it here. If you women would stand up with me, we would stop it.

The above extract is from Zunuong-ma’s introduction of the lead researcher to the women and one can read her passion and commitment in the repetitive emphasis in the excerpt. She went on to discuss some of the advocacy work she had carried out for years on the matter of abolishing the marriage payment without much success. According to Zunuong-ma, dismantling the payment will enable women to freely leave marriages if their lives were perceived to be in danger. Taken uncritically, this sounds plausible; if bridewealth is the source of women’s oppression and normalized violence against them, undoing it will bring relief to them. This is because women will no longer be obliged to repay any bride price before they can leave the marriage. Women can also claim ownership to the children in marriage since what gives control of the children to the man would have been eliminated. Nonetheless, this simplistic approach has the potential to engender consequences that may be very dangerous for women and their children as discussed above. We argue that the way out of the subordination and violence against Dagaaba women does not lie with abolishing the marriage payment, and this is because the actors in marriage, both women and men, abhor such a proposal. Although the women frequently attributed their vulnerable position to the marriage payment, of all the women and men interviewed, no one supported this idea of ‘free’ marriage. According to them, marrying young women off for ‘free’ may engender far-reaching consequences.

Undoing the institution of kyeuri: Bottlenecks

Throughout the ethnography, no community member, woman or man, was in support of the proposals by women’s rights advocates and clergymen to undo the marriage payment. Two different group discussions held during the fieldwork where this topic was discussed revealed that any project geared towards abolishing the bridewealth payment is likely to meet a deadlock, the kind encountered by the early missionaries (Behrends, 2002). On abolishing the marriage payments, participants in both groups laughed uncontrollably, and indeed, this derision was widespread in everyday conversations during the ethnography. The first group was a women-only income-generating activity group, in another settlement. As the women, in turns, lamented over the entrapment the marriage payment puts on them, the lead author asked: ‘so, if the bridewealth is the basis for calling women property and slaves and for the ancestors bringing forth curses on them, what do you think about the ongoing advocacy on scrapping it?’ What transpired was quite revealing; it draws attention to how some ‘Third World’ feminists who accuse Western theorists of imperialism may themselves be partakers of this hegemonizing project. All of the about 30 women disagreed with this proposal. One of the women argued: ‘this [payments] has been going on during the time of our forefathers; my mother was paid for; I was also paid for. And if I have a daughter and go through the labor of bringing forth, why should I give her out for free [laughs sarcastically]?’ This was a challenging question for Zunoung-ma, the anti-bridewealth campaigner, to answer. A visibly distraught Zunoung-ma retorted:

Do you know that you women are responsible for women’s suffering? . . . we Dagaaba women don’t want change . . . [turning to the researcher, she said] they insist that it is tradition and must continue . . . Unfortunately you are dealing with people like them who cannot really go beyond their noses to appreciate and mobilize.

The frustrations of Zunoung-ma, an enthusiastic women’s rights activist and an apparently committed neoliberal subject, about the apparent apathy in regard of an emancipatory endeavor that, in her estimation, has the potential to liberate women from oppression can be seen in the above quote. This vituperative attack was fueled by the efforts, time and resources she and her apologists have invested into this enterprise. For about five years prior to this encounter, she organized public awareness creation programs and mobilized these and many other women to stage public support for this enterprise (even if they did not believe in its emancipatory potentials). Indeed, she continues: ‘it is a very docile female group and I feel sad and disappointed [about this] because even if you want them to be emancipated it is not easy.’ The imperializing, but also the condescending posture, of Zunoung-ma is obvious. These rural Dagaaba women are deeply shackled by the marriage payment and they require liberation from an enlightened and powerful ‘sister’. Zunoung-ma’s perspectives and advocacy have an interesting resemblance with those of Dery. Dery lamented that, sadly, ‘in this whole crusade for the emancipation of our women, women themselves are their own foes’ (Dery, 2013: 20). Dery, just like his interlocutor, Zunuong-ma, seems not to appreciate the enormity of the constraints within which Dagaaba women exercise agency. Thus, he demands of them to become authoritative speaking and powerful identity-forming/claiming subjects in this patriarchal setting. But the women are acutely aware of their social positioning as subordinate to the men and the normative requirement for them to be subservient. Furthermore, Zunuong-ma appeared to have a very disdainful attitude towards the perceived supernatural power forms that structure social life greatly in the rural Dagaaba contexts. In relation to the supposed adultery-related sickness, moↄro, she asserted:

We Dagaaba women are the source of our problems; we know married women who go and do it [have sex with other men] and come and enter the [husband’s] house without anything happening to them. But if you are afraid of the gods and the ancestors you would get the moↄro.

At this point, in disagreeing with their sponsor and ‘emancipator’, most of the women began to murmur. Daboo-ma, one of the women at the discussion, mustered courage and rebutted: ‘No, madam! Well, you are saying that if you did that [committed ‘adultery’] moↄro won’t affect you but the traditional way it would affect us.’ Daboo-ma’s contention was meant to explain to the liberated city-based activist, Zunuong-ma, the repercussions of disobeying the customs that deeply affect their lives as rural women who are without the kind of social capital at the disposal of the ‘enlightened sister’. These, and indeed, Dagaaba women’s lives in the rural settlements are powerfully influenced by the male-dominant institutions and the supposed activities of non-human actors, including the ancestors, magic and witchcraft. Yet, Zunuong-ma dismissed the women’s concerns as nothing but psychological gimmicks. She explained:

I would tell you sincerely that this is just a psychological problem, I don’t believe in those things [the influence of the supernatural forces]. But psychologically you [rural women] have it in your minds that once you sleep with another man outside the marriage, you would get that disease [moↄro]. And you know, our psyche is so strong.

Zunuong-ma’s approach here is to reduce the belief in the supernatural consequences of sleeping with another man as a married Dagao woman to the power of the psyche to produce reality. As poststructuralist theorists who believe in the repetitive power of discourse to produce that which it names, this viewpoint is very appealing. But to say discourse produces reality is not to say that discursive practices have no effects. Within the context of Dagaaba marriage, because these ‘rural’ women are critically culturally aware, they will make no mistakes by reducing the normative restrictions the perceived mystical forces place on them and their sexuality to discourse and hence disobey them in the name of emancipation.

In the second group, a mixed-sex group made up of about 36 members, in disagreeing with the abolition endeavor, members explained that the marriage payment is the foundation of Dagaaba marriage; it gives marriage legitimacy and thus, without it, there will be no marriage. Gbankomabile (aged about 56 and without formal education), a female participant, explained: ‘I think the bride price is an ancestral creation. If you marry and your bridewealth is not paid you are not regarded in the marital family.’ As an age-old custom, the marriage payment cannot afford to be stopped. And this point is also made by Daboo-ma above. Similar views were expressed by two women leaders, Kaleo-ma (aged 77, married into Doung, a middle school leaver), Nator-ma (aged 70, married into Kaleo and a former director of education) and a male traditional leader, Bebenaah (aged 74, a retired miner), who opposed this abolition project. All of them explained that the marriage payment provides women and their children with legitimacy, dignity and respect. Although both women agreed that the conjugal payment and exogamous practices mean that women cannot be equal to men, they vehemently opposed any attempts to undo the payment due to the potential to worsen women’s already tenuous positions in the marriage.

Nator-ma, explained in an interview:

It may be a good idea to abolish the marriage payment, but I don’t think it will work in a male-dominated place like here. Maybe if future generations see that the bridewealth is archaic; it is not helping with stability; they can do away with it. At the moment, it rather helps to strengthen identities [. . .]. I don’t think it is a threat to family stability.

Although Nator-ma’s primary focus here is family stability as a women’s leader in the local Catholic church rather than women’s status, it is clear that she is opposed to the abolition project. Indeed, she appears to be more in touch with reality than the abolitionists. The abolitionists’ perspectives of traditional marriage, underpinned by their religious ideology and other social markers, have altered their cultural frames of reference, which in turn leads them to contest the traditional bridewealth institution. Yet, the rural ‘sisters’ are more attuned to the normative practices. Discussions in this article point to the fact that the payment of bride price certainly is the root of Dagaaba women’s oppression. Nonetheless, abolishing its payment is a far cry from what the women whose lives are profoundly affected by its consequences espouse. Throughout the field research, the thought of undoing the institution of the marriage payment elicited sarcastic laughter and opposition. The fact that this proposal provoked laughter and vehement opposition across different Dagaaba settlements and subjects may be an ample indication that such a project might be ‘ridiculous’ (Dery, 2013: 3). Furthermore, within the context of the Dagaaba, an unmarried Dagao woman’s position and status is as ambivalent, if not more so than a married one’s (because of the value placed on marriage). Consequently, we argue that undoing the institution of bridewealth may not necessarily resolve the issues surrounding women’s subordination and violence. In terms of emancipating Dagaaba women, Nator-ma in addition to some of the pro-bridewealth research participants suggested a revival of the traditional family court system and this is examined in the concluding section.

Conclusions: Customary legal system and practices in place of imperialist undoing

This article has examined the practice of the marriage payment amongst the Dagaaba people and its role in producing subordinate positions for women. Two main factors accounting for the subjugation of women in this cultural setting are the exogamous marriage arrangement itself and the payment of bridewealth. Thus, for women to move from the position of marginality is for the marriage payment to be abolished, some Dagaaba gender activists and scholars have argued (see, for example, Dery, 2013). Yet, the women and men interviewed were almost unanimous in their abhorrence for any endeavors geared towards destroying this practice because of the ‘dishonor’ such an initiative would bring to the institution of marriage. This situation of Dagaaba women, in particular, who bear the brunt of the oppression that exogamous marriage practices engender, has been frustrating for some women’s rights activists. But the analysis in this article has yielded a few key lessons for gender activism. First, the passion to bring about change in women’s lives by way of emancipating them from the shackles of oppressive cultural practices is commendable and indeed requires concerted efforts. This is because the price of women’s subordination is borne by all members of society. Yet, we suggest that this bridewealth feminism will benefit enormously from the acquisition of feminist consciousness, a critical awareness of women’s oppression and a determination to fight it. This consciousness, once acquired, will allow for such advocacy that addresses women’s subordination while at the same time permitting open-mindedness and sensitivity to the local beliefs and principles of the women they seek to ‘liberate’ rather than upsetting these. In this regard Nnaemeka’s ‘Nego-feminism’, mentioned above, and African feminist perspectives that emphasize negotiation, bargaining, compromise and collaboration are very useful (see Kandiyoti, 1988). Gender justice advocacy will benefit enormously if the activists draw on these principles and work with male stakeholders and community leaders to end violence against women and subordination.

Furthermore, women’s rights activists need to constantly be attuned to their own privileged positioning in relation to the ‘oppressed’ subjects of liberation and the way this advantage affects their thoughts and practices. In this sense, theorizing and activism will be more receptive of the specific vulnerabilities that the rural ‘sisters’ are predisposed to, the majority of whom have no access to the social and economic capitals available to the liberated urban ones. With this, the activists might be measured in the kinds of ideas and strategies they put forward for negotiating equality. This is important if women’s position is to improve in contexts that are manifestly constraining, such as the Dagaaba ones. The lack of appreciation for the women’s lived realities and the constraints they find themselves, in addition to the vitriolic attacks as a result of their opposition to the anti-bridewealth campaigns, signal the hegemonizing tendencies inherent in the works of some of the activists in rural settings. These privileged urban-based and ‘empowered’ advocates are then entrapped in the same pitfalls for which they chastise some Western feminists who mis/appropriate the trope of the ‘African woman’ or the ‘Third World woman’ as oppressed victims of various patriarchal institutions for points of illustration (see Mohanty, 1988; Spivak, 1988).

In drawing the discussion to a close, the article proposes two important strategies as a starting point to negotiating the liberation of women in this and similar settings: a return to the traditional court system and enhanced community responsibility towards ending marital violence and the oppression of women. Across Dagaaba settlements and, indeed, throughout northern Ghana, one of the important roles of the traditional family towards the turn of the 19th century to mid-20th century was marital dispute resolution. Until recently, when the instrumental role of the traditional family courts has given way to the modern legal system, they used to serve as important sites for resolving marital disputes in ways that were culturally appropriate and respectful of the parties. Membership of the court was composed of the elders of the family, all of whom were males. Nonetheless, the court heard each person out and resolved matters in the service of continuous peaceful existence. A return to this customary court system constitutes a means to reducing marital violence and abuse. In proposing this, we acknowledge that as a male-centric institution, women may not always be served with justice. Consider the view of a traditional leader, Bebenaah (aged 74), who is conversant with this family court system, on marital violence. He argued that the court could not intervene because its members did not know what offense the woman had committed. He said: ‘Do you know what the woman did? You don’t know how she offended the man and so you cannot get involved. Maybe the woman has more resources than the husband and then she leverages on this to expose the man to public ridicule [. . .]’. Bebenaah, and many older Dagaaba men interviewed, believe that women who transgress normative requirements, including disrespecting the husband, should be punished. However, this proposed return to the traditional family court system together with a sustained education of women and men to develop critical awareness and attitudes towards the effects of gendered oppression is a starting point to liberating them.

In furtherance, a Dagao woman suffering from oppression and marital violence is normatively expected to show the family structures some respect by not reporting an abusive husband to the police (Akurugu, 2019). The Dagaaba people believe that the woman is expected to protect the man from harm, both physical and perceived supernatural. As such, any woman who causes the arrest and prosecution of her abusive husband faces such stigmatized name-calling as pog gandao, which has the potential to expose her to mystical harm. Within the context of these constraints, which mean that women sometimes have to accept and normalize oppression and violence in marriage, we suggest the need for a community-wide response to this. Specifically, we propose that the extended family members show greater interest in each marriage union and report any abusive men (or women) to the police. This is particularly useful if the family court fails to resolve marital issues. This suggestion resonates profoundly with the Dagaaba worldview on marriage as a communal affair, uniting the settlements of the bride and bridegroom. This strategy is possible as it also draws heavily on traditional Dagaaba solidarity and care for one another (Dery, 2013; Yelpaala, 1992). Thus, with a sustained education on the dehumanizing components of women’s oppression and violence, this might be achievable in the long run.