Cousin marriage rates from most African nations outside the Middle East are unknown. It is however estimated that 35–50% of all sub-Saharan African populations either prefer or accept cousin marriages.[60] In Nigeria, the most populous country of Africa, the three largest tribes in order of size are the Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo.[61] The Hausa are overwhelmingly Muslim, though followers of traditional religions do exist. Muslim Hausa practice cousin marriage preferentially, and polygyny is allowed if the husband can support multiple wives.[62] The book Baba of Karo presents one prominent portrayal of Hausa life: according to its English coauthor, it is unknown for Hausa women to be unmarried for any great length of time after around the age of fourteen.[63] Divorce can be accomplished easily by either the male or the female, but females must then remarry.[64] Even for a man, lacking a spouse is looked down upon.[65] Baba of Karos first of four marriages was to her second cousin. She recounts in the book that her good friend married the friends first cross cousin.[66] The Yoruba people are 50 % Muslim, 40 % Christian, and 10 % adherent of their own indigenous religious traditions.[67] A 1974 study analyzed Yoruba marriages in the town Oka Akoko, finding that among a sample of highly polygynous marriages having an average of about three wives, 51% of all pairings were consanguineous. These included not only cousin marriages but also uncle-niece unions. Reportedly it is a custom that in such marriages at least one spouse must be a relative, and generally such spouses were the preferred or favorite wives in the marriage and gave birth to more children. However, it must be emphasized that this was not a general study of Yoruba, but only of highly polygynous Yoruba residing in Oka Akoko.[68] Finally, the Igbo people of southern Nigeria specifically prohibit both parallel- and cross-cousin marriage, though polygyny is common. Men are forbidden to marry within their own patrilineage or those of their mother or fathers mother and must marry outside their own village. Igbo are almost entirely Christian, having converted heavily under colonialism.[69] In Ethiopia most of the population were historically rigidly opposed to cousin marriage, and could consider up to third cousins the equivalent of brother and sister, with marriage at least ostensibly prohibited out to sixth cousins.[70] They also took affinal prohibitions very seriously. The prospect of a man marrying a former wifes sister was seen as incest, and conversely for a woman and her former husbands brother.[71] Though Muslims make up over a third of the Ethiopian population, and Islam has been present in the country since the time of Muhammad, cross-cousin marriage is very rare among most Ethiopian Muslims.[72] In contrast to the Nigerian situation, in Ethiopia Islam cannot be identified with particular tribal groups and is found across most of them, and conversions between religions are comparatively common.[73] But exceptions to these rules include the overwhelmingly Muslim Somali and Afar peoples, who respectively make up 6.2% and 1.73% of the population.[74] The Afar practice a form of cousin marriage called absuma that is arranged at birth and can be forced.[75]
Posted on: Fri, 01 Nov 2013 10:36:52 +0000
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