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Family Structures in Kenya
The Traditional African Family Structure
The traditional African family structure was characterized by:
1
...

 Bride price was paid to the larger family of the bride and therefore Marriage linked two
families and not two individuals
...

 Today members of the extended family still have a role to play on the marriages of young
people
...

2
...

- Hence men were allowed to marry many wives to guard against childlessness
...
This was enforced through such myths eg that intercourse spoiled the
milk
...

- Children perpetuated the family name and linked the living and the ancestors
...
Sometimes they were
used to show
kinship solidarity by being given out to others especially the
childless ones
...
In Kenya for example, fertility has
gone down from 8
...
7 in 1989, to 4
...
0 in the
mid 2000s
...
Women with no formal education had an average of 5
...
5 children for women with secondary education (Kenya, 1999; UNDP, 2004)
...

3
...
In a
patriarchal family system, males are the major decision-makers and the words of women are given
little value when the decision being made affects them
...
Patrilocal residence- Where by newly married couples lived with the groom’s family
...
Patrilocal residence was found in almost all
societies prior to industrialization and urbanization
...
Care for and respect for the elderly
- All children were expected to care for their aged parents
...

- To ensure that parents got good care during their less productive age, they
involved in the choice of a spouse
...
Payment of bride-wealth
- To compensate the parents for the loss of their daughter but was not
meant to be an assessment of her ‘cost’ in cattle and goods
...


union,

with
respect
were

and

7
...
Traditional Kenyan
families engaged in parent-arranged marriages based on similar SES, personal character, and
family background rather than mutual attraction and love
...

8
...
This is demonstrated by the
following practices:, other provisions were therefore made for the couple to have children
...

 Sororal polygyny, where a barren wife approached her younger sister to be a co-wife and
bear children for her
...

 Fraternal polyandry, where a sterile man invited his brother to sire offspring for him
without other marital obligations, especially among Nilotes
...

 Bigamy, that is the practice of a man having another wife away from his first matrimonial
home
...

Abstinence was practiced as a form of natural child spacing and also as a postpartum cultural norm
...
Among
most traditional communities, if a bride was a virgin, she was highly respected
...
He did not
necessarily expect her initiation to sexual intercourse to be with him upon marriage (Wilson &
Ngige, 2006)
...
Lack of public display of affection
...

- They were to do so through respect and caring for each other in subtle ways
...
Collectivism is the practice embraced in cultures that:
- Built upon group obligation
...

- Consider needs of family to be paramount and come before individual desires
...

Traditional/ Customary
Modern/ Industrial/ Post-Industrial
Collectivist Values General
Individualist Values General
 Patriarchal
 Male-dominant, but to lesser extent
 Preference for extended family
 Decrease in extended family control
of decisions, demands on resources,
 Comfort with familism
...

 more children born out of marriage
 Large families preferred
...

 Early child bearing/ parenting for girls
 Extended family influences all aspects
of parenting
 All adults were responsible for the
upbringing of all children regardless of
biological ties
...

Collectivist Values (Couples and Marriage) Individualist Values (Couples and
- Polygyny esteemed/ monogamy valued
Marriage)
- Marriage as an alliance of two families
 Senior partner/ junior partnerships
- Marriage as a means to an end (children)
for men and women
- Early marriage for girls
...

- Parent-choice for marriage







Securing education and careers
before starting families
Bride-wealth
as
increasingly
symbolic
Increase in single-parenthood, nonmarital childbearing/rearing
Increase in dating, pre-marital sex,
self-choice in marriage
Preference for formal marriage
ceremony
over
tradition
or
customary marriage

Other aspects of traditional culture that have also changed include:
 Constrained communication between parents and children
...

 Large extended families living together
...

The western concept of the family largely resembled the nuclear family described by functionalist
theorists and conservatives
...
The husband is the breadwinner and
protector and the wife the homemaker
...
Today we find:
 Families without children
...

 Step (reconstructed) families
...

 Dual earner families
...

Other changes affecting families in Kenya (and other African countries) include:
 Continuing migration of men for work
...

 Increasing monogamous in contrast to polygamous customary marriages
...

 Newly emerged quasi-extended families composed of a basic nuclear family with selected
live-in dependent relatives
...
Conversely, majority of the Kenyan young, educated and
westernized couples with medium to high socioeconomic status (SES) embrace Western culture,

wholly or partly, and prefer: self-choice, love marriage to a parent-arranged marriage; formal
marriage ceremony over traditional or customary marriage; monogamy over polygyny;
individualism over collectivism or familism; small to large family size; nuclear family pattern or
quasi-extended family setting over the traditional extended family structure; and an urban
residence over a rural residence
...
This group is in transition, evolving African and Western culture in regard to
marriage and family life
...

Factors that have led to Alteration of the Family Structure in Kenya
The forces which have shaped family diversity in Kenya include:

The Colonial Experience
 New economic systems- Introduction of the money economy, employment (hence
education), taxation, services to be paid for etc
...

 Political actions leading to social conflict, segregation and alienation of land- hence ethnic
dissatisfaction and animosity, refugees and IDPs
...

 Introduction of forced labour that withdrew able bodied males from the family farms coupled
with urbanization and creation of “bed space” housing
...

 Schooling- led to lifts within families as the educated members began to question the
authority of the uneducated older family members
...
g
...
According to Van Allen, 1972 African women often had a great deal of power over
men in pre-colonial period
...

Independent Experience
Independent governments enacted changes to counter effects of colonialism, such as:
 Equalizing the role of women in society
...

 (Re)-distributing resources (e
...
land consolidation and settlement schemes) so that all family
members would have fair chances in life
...
Children are highly valued both in traditional and in
contemporary families
...
Traditionally, the emphasis was on
large family size, with an average of eight children
...
However, recent population pressure and increasing costs of raising children
has led to smaller families
...

A significant reduction in the average size of the household due to adoption of the nuclear
family structure and decline in fertility
...

A significant shift from the extended or joint, mainly patriarchal and patrilocal family, to
a quasi-extended or quasi-nuclear, relatively egalitarian and neolocal (new location) one
...

Increase of non-marital and other types of families such as single- parent families and
cohabiting partners who perceive themselves as family
...
0 children per woman in Kenya by late 1990s (numbers are
dramatically lower in urban settings compared to rural areas)
Adoption of modern contraception: in Kenya the use of contraceptive methods was 39%
by the end of the 20th century
...

Trend from payment of bride-wealth in-kind and non-money goods to monetary
...

A change of ways in which relatives, for example, mothers and children, husbands and
wives, aunts and cousins treated each other
...
Since the
passing of child labour laws and the introduction of formal learning at the turn of the
century however, children have become economically useless but emotionally priceless
...


References
Adams, B
...
, & Mburugu, E
...
http://www
...
com/upm-data/4948
...
N
...
(1994)
...
Journal of
Comparative Family Studies, 25(2), 159–16

Becker, R
...
(1984)
...
Washington, D
...
: National Institute of Education
...
S
...
Early childhood programs in other nations: Goals and outcomes
...

Bowen, M
...
Family Therapy in Clinical Practice
...

Clignet, R
...
Many wives, many powers
...
E
...
and Davies, P
...
Children and Marital Conflict
...

Easterlin, Richard A
...
“Modernization and fertility: A critical Essay”; In Determinants of
Fertility in Developing Countries
...

Ferraro, G
...
(1973)
...
Urban
Anthropology, 2, 214–231
Gupta, A
...
(2006)
...
Current Anthropology
Hetherington, E
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, Cox, M
...
(1982)
...
(ed
...
Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum
...
& Super, C
...
(2002)
...
In M
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Bornstein (Ed
...
2: Biology and ecology of parenting (pp
...

Hughes, F
...
and Nopple, L
...
(1990)
...
New York:
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...
, Roberts, J
...
(1988)
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New York: W
...
Norton
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L
...
E
...
Cultural values and parenting education
...
E
...
Kagan (Eds
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37-55)
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Kagitcibasi, C
...
, & Bekman, S
...
Long term effects of early intervention: Turkish
low-income mothers and children
...

Olds, D
...
, Sadler, L
...
(in press)
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Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry

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