Female-Centered Families: Changing Patterns of Marriage and Family among Buzaa Brewers of Mathare Valley

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Periodical article

Title:	Female-Centered Families: Changing Patterns of Marriage and Family among Buzaa Brewers of Mathare Valley
Author:	Nelson, Nici
Year:	1978
Periodical:	African Urban Studies
Issue:	3
Period:	Winter
Pages:	85-103
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Kenya
Subjects:	women family beer Women's Issues Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
Abstract:	This paper examines some aspects of the lives of women buzaa (a local maize beer) brewers living in a squatter area of Nairobi, Kenya. Mathare Valley is well known throughout Nairobi for the large number of unmarried women who live there, running an 'entertainment industry' for the many men working, or looking for work, and living in Nairobi without their families. Examined are changes in the family patterns of these independent female heads of households in Mathare, in the years 1972 to 1974. Described are: the matrifocal, or female headed, household which is becoming a more frequent phenomenon in Kenya and throughout Africa; the fostering of Mathare children with their mother's mothers usually resident in the rural area; the tendency for daughters to remain with their mothers while sons move away and break close ties with their natal families; sister clusters that have formed in Mathare. Some possible theoretical explanations are proposed for this shift taking place in Mathare and similar low-income areas of Kenya's cities, and some of the associated ideological changes are cited. Notes, ref.