Social Structure is Where the Hearth is: A 'Woman's Place' in Beti Society

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Periodical article

Title:	Social Structure is Where the Hearth is: A 'Woman's Place' in Beti Society
Author:	Houseman, Michael
Year:	1988
Periodical:	Africa: Journal of the International African Institute
Volume:	58
Issue:	1
Pages:	51-69
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Cameroon
Subjects:	social structure Beti women Women's Issues Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Family Life Cultural Roles Sex Roles
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/1159870
Abstract:	The traditional village organization of the Beti of southern Cameroon is grounded in the formal, spatial and sexual oppositions contained in the contrast between the men's house and the plurality of women's kitchen dwellings. In the present article, an analysis of the cooking hearth - 'a woman's place' - in Beti society provides the basis for reconsidering certain aspects of patrilineal organization. Its aims are twofold: first, to demonstrate a continuity between female domestic roles and overall social structure, areas of concern commonly perceived as pertaining to separate domains and, second, to suggest the structural relevance of co-affinal ties, relationships largely neglected by current kinship theory. The perspective developed derives from an understanding of the cooking hearth - one explicitly put forward by the Beti themselves - which associates the three hearthstones with three kinship identities: a woman's mother-in-law, her daughter-in-law, and her son-in-law. Bibliogr., notes, ref. sum. in French.