International African Institute

Matrilineal Ideology: Male--Female Dynamics in Luapala, Zambia by Karla O. PoeweReview by: Pepe RobertsAfrica: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 54, No. 2 (1984), p. 108Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International African InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1159921 .

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to Lewanika by giving him a piece of white calico which was offered at the tomb of one of Lewanika's ancestors. Prins sees this as the incident that determined the future relationship between Lewanika and Coillard.

Although Prins was treading 'one of the best blazed paths in the historiography of central Africa' his book contains some new and interesting material. It is well written and does not have the misspellings that marred Caplan's book. It certainly is a new pedestal upon which future research can be built. I feel, however, that he tried too hard to think himself into Lewanika's shoes. I sometimes got the uneasy feeling that he was veiling his own perceptions. In forty years' time some scholar might claim that the 'Hidden Hippo' was the official translation of the events of 1876-96, sanctioned by the Litunga, Ilute Yeta IV. Certainly the shutters strengthened by the Litaba za Sichaba sa Malozi still remain in place.

M. A. SIFUNISO

University of Zambia

KARLA O. POEWE, Matrilineal Ideology: male-female dynamics in Luapala, Zambia. London: Academic Press for the International African Institute, 1981, 149 pp.

This volume vigorously seeks to refute 'the myth of universal male dominance'. Poewe starts with a classification of possible sexual interaction patterns and argues that Luapala pursue a strategy of sexual parallelism. Women and men have distinct values, goals and interests, and independently manage largely separate and distinct resources in order to achieve valued ends.

Sexual parallelism derives from Luapala matrilineal ideology which is supported predominantly by women. It is guided by the values of commonality, unrestricted access to resources and a matrilateral distributive justice. It emphasizes the common substance shared by matrilineage members and condemns intimate dependency between sexual partners, whether married or not. Sex and sexuality is healthy but women do not surrender their sexual or reproductive autonomy to men.

The 'matrilineal mode of production', however, is in fundamental contradiction with capitalism, or 'the market industrial complex'. Aspiring male entrepreneurs desire patrilineality, monogamy and the nuclear family to evade the ideology of matrilineal distribution. They choose Christianity, especially Jehovah's Witness, and try to control their wives: '. . any sadness in the state of female conditions ... is that an increasing number of women are being persuaded to exchange their "autonomy" for the material benefits which reformed husbands and Protestant Churches promise them' (p. 98).

The book is short. The first part contains a concise, though desperately difficult to absorb, exposition of kinship and ethno-political theory. Her arguments concerning the nature and requisites of the market-industrial complex are much weaker. The last part of the book is a vivid account of women's and men's economic enterprise, emergent class stratification with corresponding differences in marital strategy and the debate on women's political position in post-independence Zambia. 'Socialist' Zambia has condemned the socialist principles of matrilineal ideology in favour of men's interests in controlling the labour and sexuality of women.

PEPE ROBERTS

University of Liverpool

ROY WILLIS, A State in the Making: myth, history, and social transformation in pre-colonial Ufipa, African Systems of Thought. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981, 322 pp.

The Fipa are a people of southwestern Tanzania who were once the subjects of three separate but interrelated polities: Milansi, Nkansi and Lyangalile. A State in theMaking (why not States?) attempts to account for their formation, tracing their history through

to Lewanika by giving him a piece of white calico which was offered at the tomb of one of Lewanika's ancestors. Prins sees this as the incident that determined the future relationship between Lewanika and Coillard.

Although Prins was treading 'one of the best blazed paths in the historiography of central Africa' his book contains some new and interesting material. It is well written and does not have the misspellings that marred Caplan's book. It certainly is a new pedestal upon which future research can be built. I feel, however, that he tried too hard to think himself into Lewanika's shoes. I sometimes got the uneasy feeling that he was veiling his own perceptions. In forty years' time some scholar might claim that the 'Hidden Hippo' was the official translation of the events of 1876-96, sanctioned by the Litunga, Ilute Yeta IV. Certainly the shutters strengthened by the Litaba za Sichaba sa Malozi still remain in place.

M. A. SIFUNISO

University of Zambia

KARLA O. POEWE, Matrilineal Ideology: male-female dynamics in Luapala, Zambia. London: Academic Press for the International African Institute, 1981, 149 pp.

This volume vigorously seeks to refute 'the myth of universal male dominance'. Poewe starts with a classification of possible sexual interaction patterns and argues that Luapala pursue a strategy of sexual parallelism. Women and men have distinct values, goals and interests, and independently manage largely separate and distinct resources in order to achieve valued ends.

Sexual parallelism derives from Luapala matrilineal ideology which is supported predominantly by women. It is guided by the values of commonality, unrestricted access to resources and a matrilateral distributive justice. It emphasizes the common substance shared by matrilineage members and condemns intimate dependency between sexual partners, whether married or not. Sex and sexuality is healthy but women do not surrender their sexual or reproductive autonomy to men.

The 'matrilineal mode of production', however, is in fundamental contradiction with capitalism, or 'the market industrial complex'. Aspiring male entrepreneurs desire patrilineality, monogamy and the nuclear family to evade the ideology of matrilineal distribution. They choose Christianity, especially Jehovah's Witness, and try to control their wives: '. . any sadness in the state of female conditions ... is that an increasing number of women are being persuaded to exchange their "autonomy" for the material benefits which reformed husbands and Protestant Churches promise them' (p. 98).

The book is short. The first part contains a concise, though desperately difficult to absorb, exposition of kinship and ethno-political theory. Her arguments concerning the nature and requisites of the market-industrial complex are much weaker. The last part of the book is a vivid account of women's and men's economic enterprise, emergent class stratification with corresponding differences in marital strategy and the debate on women's political position in post-independence Zambia. 'Socialist' Zambia has condemned the socialist principles of matrilineal ideology in favour of men's interests in controlling the labour and sexuality of women.

PEPE ROBERTS

University of Liverpool

ROY WILLIS, A State in the Making: myth, history, and social transformation in pre-colonial Ufipa, African Systems of Thought. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981, 322 pp.

The Fipa are a people of southwestern Tanzania who were once the subjects of three separate but interrelated polities: Milansi, Nkansi and Lyangalile. A State in theMaking (why not States?) attempts to account for their formation, tracing their history through

to Lewanika by giving him a piece of white calico which was offered at the tomb of one of Lewanika's ancestors. Prins sees this as the incident that determined the future relationship between Lewanika and Coillard.

Although Prins was treading 'one of the best blazed paths in the historiography of central Africa' his book contains some new and interesting material. It is well written and does not have the misspellings that marred Caplan's book. It certainly is a new pedestal upon which future research can be built. I feel, however, that he tried too hard to think himself into Lewanika's shoes. I sometimes got the uneasy feeling that he was veiling his own perceptions. In forty years' time some scholar might claim that the 'Hidden Hippo' was the official translation of the events of 1876-96, sanctioned by the Litunga, Ilute Yeta IV. Certainly the shutters strengthened by the Litaba za Sichaba sa Malozi still remain in place.

M. A. SIFUNISO

University of Zambia

KARLA O. POEWE, Matrilineal Ideology: male-female dynamics in Luapala, Zambia. London: Academic Press for the International African Institute, 1981, 149 pp.

This volume vigorously seeks to refute 'the myth of universal male dominance'. Poewe starts with a classification of possible sexual interaction patterns and argues that Luapala pursue a strategy of sexual parallelism. Women and men have distinct values, goals and interests, and independently manage largely separate and distinct resources in order to achieve valued ends.

Sexual parallelism derives from Luapala matrilineal ideology which is supported predominantly by women. It is guided by the values of commonality, unrestricted access to resources and a matrilateral distributive justice. It emphasizes the common substance shared by matrilineage members and condemns intimate dependency between sexual partners, whether married or not. Sex and sexuality is healthy but women do not surrender their sexual or reproductive autonomy to men.

The 'matrilineal mode of production', however, is in fundamental contradiction with capitalism, or 'the market industrial complex'. Aspiring male entrepreneurs desire patrilineality, monogamy and the nuclear family to evade the ideology of matrilineal distribution. They choose Christianity, especially Jehovah's Witness, and try to control their wives: '. . any sadness in the state of female conditions ... is that an increasing number of women are being persuaded to exchange their "autonomy" for the material benefits which reformed husbands and Protestant Churches promise them' (p. 98).

The book is short. The first part contains a concise, though desperately difficult to absorb, exposition of kinship and ethno-political theory. Her arguments concerning the nature and requisites of the market-industrial complex are much weaker. The last part of the book is a vivid account of women's and men's economic enterprise, emergent class stratification with corresponding differences in marital strategy and the debate on women's political position in post-independence Zambia. 'Socialist' Zambia has condemned the socialist principles of matrilineal ideology in favour of men's interests in controlling the labour and sexuality of women.

PEPE ROBERTS

University of Liverpool

ROY WILLIS, A State in the Making: myth, history, and social transformation in pre-colonial Ufipa, African Systems of Thought. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981, 322 pp.

The Fipa are a people of southwestern Tanzania who were once the subjects of three separate but interrelated polities: Milansi, Nkansi and Lyangalile. A State in theMaking (why not States?) attempts to account for their formation, tracing their history through

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