Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0155/01552.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 31KB | 520 lines

$Unique_ID{COW01552}
$Pretitle{282}
$Title{Guyana
Chapter 7.    The Family}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{William B. Mitchell}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{east
family
marriage
children
indian
african
household
legal
class
common}
$Date{1969}
$Log{}
Country:     Guyana
Book:        Guyana, A Country Study
Author:      William B. Mitchell
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1969

Chapter 7.    The Family

     Family and kinship behavior in Guyana ideally reflect the cherished and
enduring assumptions and beliefs which define and sanction British family
life. During the period of unbroken British colonial rule which began in 1815
and ended in Guyanan independence in 1964 these British beliefs were modified
both in Britain and in the colony. The relevant British family model is the
nuclear family of the modern western industrialized world, based on romantic
love and consisting of legally wed parents and their legitimate unmarried and
dependent children residing in an independent household and bound to kin only
by fragile ties.

     Under British rule the multiethnic society incorporated at its lowest
status level major groups with deep commitments to extended kinship systems
and kin loyalties, and no positive sanctions of romantic love in marriage.
British family life was foreign to the African slaves and the East Indian
indentured laborers who replaced them after the abolition of slavery. African
family life was disrupted by the institution of slavery; the plantation system
discouraged the establishment of stable families in the alien setting of the
British colony. Exceptionally, educated slaves and free men of African origin
adopted British family values and behavior patterns before and after
abolition. The more numerous rural African poor, however, instituted stable
arrangements for children which were independent of legal marriage and nuclear
family structure, but dependent upon ties of affection and responsibility
among women kinfolk.

     After the abolition of slavery in the colony in 1837, East Indian
indentured laborers were brought in to work the sugar plantations. Wives
infrequently accompanied their husbands in the indenture pattern which was
followed in British Guiana; the disrupting impact of long separation upon
family life was exacerbated by the scarcity of East Indian women in the
country that became the permanent home of many of these voluntary migrants.
Plantation management had little understanding of the values and practices
which held the East Indian family and kin together; plantation assignments to
living quarters, interventions in marital discord, and high-handed paternalism
did nothing to counteract the instabilities generated in the process of
migration under contract.

     The indenture system was of short duration, ending before the start of
the third quarter of the 19th century. At its close most East Indians chose
to remain on the plantations; for many there was no real alternative. The
few who vied for higher status in the larger Guyanan society adopted British
values or norms as one of the preconditions to acceptance in the national, as
contrasted with the local, social system.

     In the nuclear family households of the middle level and upper class
Guyanese today, the father is the major figure. Even lower class East Indian
tradition, in some respects so unlike the British ideal, perpetuates a similar
view of the male role in a dissimilar household setting. The contrasting lower
class African household, however, is mother oriented: the African lower class
woman is fully responsible for the welfare of her children, and even of her
children's children under specified circumstances. Children of alliances which
have not resulted in the establishment of a home by their parents are the
economic responsibility of their natural mothers or their maternal
grandmothers. Only in households in which the African father is living in
legal or in common law marriage with the mother of his young children does he
assume economic responsibility for them; he may also take in his own and his
wife's offspring from earlier alliances.

     Loyal affection and strong obligation among kin are of minor import in
the lives of the majority of Guyanese, in striking contrast to extreme
dependence upon kinship and fictional kinship in the Ibero-American countries
of Latin America. Lower class East Indians in Guyana perhaps come close to the
Ibero-Americans in the strength of kin feeling and kin responsibilities; yet
among the East Indians, too, the intensity of these relationships is lower
keyed.

     Guyanese lower class marriage patterns afford women limited, uncertain
assurances that the fathers of their children will fulfill economic and other
responsibilities toward them and their offspring. Although legal marriage with
its strong implications of faithful and affectionate fulfillment of marital
obligations and responsibilities is a national value or norm, the practice is
not universal within the society. For the lower classes, the masses of
Africans and East Indians, no negative sanctions attach to common law
marriage. Customary practices are not conducive to family stability.

     In East Indian rural communities first marriages, once inevitably
religious but not registered, and therefore not legal, now tend increasingly
to be registered and hence legal, a reflection not of changing ways, but
rather of a changing policy of government licensing of marriage officers.
Members of the Hindu and Moslem priesthood now may serve as marriage officers,
automatically registering the marital contract. In the absence of a change in
East Indian attitudes and behavior, divorce by mutual agreement without a
court ruling remains acceptable to the community. The increase in legal
marriages in the rural East Indian subculture has no meaningful implications
for the fostering of family stability.

     The instability of the East Indian lower class family is also an accepted
part of African family life. Common law marriage and temporary liaisons are
openly accepted locally. Natural fathers acknowledge their children; the
concept of illegitimacy is meaningless among the African lower class. Divorces
and separations are by mutual consent, frequently even in the breakup of a
legal marriage. Like the East Indians, however, the Africans have
institutionalized the responsibilities of the mother and her family so as to
minimize the ill effects on the children.

     Family stability is one of the cherished and enduring values of Guyanese
middle level and upper class society. The institutional arrangements of
Guyana society increasingly foster legal marriage and legal provision for
the children and mothers of broken marriages or terminated common law unions,
but the roots of instability lie in the historic past of the plantation
system. Changing national attitudes toward the East Indian and African lower
class and increased economic opportunities may gradually reduce family
instability by alleviating some of the contributing factors. Among both the
East Indians and the Africans the notion of marital choice based on romantic
love is becoming popular.

Family and Kinship Structure

     Guyana's retention of the British model imposed a national ideal of a
nuclear family constituted by a legal marriage based in some degree on
personal choice as well as on parental preference. Independent residence,
limited family size, male parent's responsibility for the support of wife and
children, stress on the education of the young, and expectation of upward
mobility characterize this family type. Its realization under the conditions
of plantation slavery or indenture is almost impossible; the social aftermath
of both systems presents a limiting condition.

East Indian Marriage and Family Life

     The persistence of some Indian cultural traits, principally in religious
observance and in family structure and marriage, combines with the importance
Guyanese society attaches to ethnic origin and