By DENISE SAVINEAU CONTENTS
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© FRANCOPHONE AFRICA: BEYOND THE ARCHIVE 2017 WOMEN AND THE FAMILY IN FRENCH WEST AFRICA Overview report1 (1938) by DENISE SAVINEAU Translated by C H Griffiths CONTENTS Report page PART 1 - CUSTOM AND LAW 1 i.Groupings 2 Forest dwellers 2 Crop farmers 2 Women in farming communities 2 Livestock farmers 3 Slavery 5 Bonded labour 7 The judicial system 8 The power of religion 9 ii. The marital group and children 10 Children born out of wedlock 10 Engagement 11 Forced marriage 11 Educated Africans’2 views on 1 This report brings together the ‘findings’ or observations Savineau made in her 17 field reports also accessible in this section of the website. 2 Africans who had completed some French education were known as ‘évolués’, translated here as ‘educated Africans’. The translation loses the colonial implication of the original which implies that an individual has ‘progressed’ or ‘evolved’ developmentally as a result of receiving a French education. 1 © FRANCOPHONE AFRICA: BEYOND THE ARCHIVE 2017 Forced marriage 12 Christian marriage 12 Dowry 13 Marriage 18 Consummation of the marriage 19 Labour and profits 20 Housing 21 Wife ranking 22 Men on polygamy 23 Women on polygamy 25 Developments in polygamy 26 Parents-in-law 26 Pregnancy 27 Childbirth 27 Twins 28 Temporary marriage 28 Authorised lovers 29 Plural marriage 30 Adultery 30 Divorce 32 Divorce settlements 35 Children of adultery 35 Widows and widowers 36 Inherited marriage 36 Remarriage 37 Inheritance 37 iii. The prison system 39 Women prisoners 40 Delinquent and criminal children 42 iv. Conclusions 46 2 © FRANCOPHONE AFRICA: BEYOND THE ARCHIVE 2017 PART 2 - AGRICULTURE, INDUSTRY AND TRADE 48 i. Produce for local consumption 48 Staples 48 Supplementary foodstuffs 50 Oil-producing crops 50 Vegetables 51 Condiments 51 Meat 53 Water and fuel 55 ii. Goods produced by families for export 57 Groundnuts 57 Cocoa 58 Oil palms 59 Cotton 61 Kapok 61 Shea butter 62 Wax and honey 63 Coffee 63 Rubber 63 Indigo 64 Orange essence 64 Gold 65 iii. Industrial production 67 Recruitment of the workforce 69 Transporting labourers 70 Piecework 71 Hourly-paid work 72 Overtime 73 Docking pay for lateness 73 Weekly rest periods 74 Poor working conditions 74 3 © FRANCOPHONE AFRICA: BEYOND THE ARCHIVE 2017 Accidents 75 Rations 76 Housing 77 Drinking water 79 Toilets 79 Health services 79 Abuse and mistreatment 80 Well-run companies 81 Local planters 82 The life of a labourer 84 Child labour 85 The female workforce 86 Labour laws 88 iv. Crop farming under the ‘settlement’ and ‘extension’ methods The Niger Office 89 The settlement system 89 Average profits 90 Head of family profits 90 Settlers’ physical and moral state 91 ‘Extension’ farming 92 Areas neighbouring Niger Office 93 Role of agents in Niger Office 94 Work regime in the Niger Office 94 Cotton production in Diré 95 Managed crop farming in Kolo 97 Mouride crop farmers 97 v. Provident Societies 98 Growth in production levels 99 Higher prices and lower porterage costs 101 The impact of machines on 4 © FRANCOPHONE AFRICA: BEYOND THE ARCHIVE 2017 the workforce 107 Monitoring the diet 107 Irrigated gardens 108 Crop farming methods compared 109 vi. Commerce 110 From peddler to shopkeeper 111 Women’s trades 113 European and Syrian trade 114 vii. Trades 117 Artisans 117 Master craftsmen 119 Apprenticeships 119 Transporters and drivers 121 Women artisans 122 Forced labour 124 Our role in achieving progress 127 PART 3 - CULTURAL DEVELOPMENTS: EDUCATION & THE HEALTH SERVICE 128 EDUCATION 129 i. Schooling for boys 131 Rural schools 131 Lodgings for schoolchildren 133 Attitudes towards schooling 136 Intellectual aptitude 137 Agricultural studies 137 Manual training in rural areas 139 Careers for schoolchildren 140 The failings of rural schools 141 5 © FRANCOPHONE AFRICA: BEYOND THE ARCHIVE 2017 ii. Schooling for girls 145 Girls’ aptitude for education 146 Domestic science 148 Barriers to teaching domestic science 150 The domestic science curriculum 151 iii. Mixed-race Orphanages 152 Orphanages for boys 152 Orphanages for girls 153 Mixed orphanages 154 Some reflections on orphanages 154 The running of orphanages 155 Pregnancy in orphanages 155 iv. Upper Schools and Teacher Training Colleges 156 Upper primary schools 156 Rural teacher training colleges 157 v. Teaching staff 158 European teachers 158 Women teaching staff 159 African staff in rural schools 160 vi. Private education 161 Boys’ schooling in Catholic missions 163 Girls’ schooling in Catholic missions 164 Protestant missions 165 American missions 166 Koranic schools 166 African private schools 167 6 © FRANCOPHONE AFRICA: BEYOND THE ARCHIVE 2017 THE HEALTH SERVICE 168 i. Clinics 168 Attendance at clinics 168 Facilities in the clinics 169 Hospitalisation and hospital food 169 Transport 170 Staffing 170 ii. Maternity units 170 Premises for maternity units 173 Take-up in maternity units 174 Home births 175 Pre-natal and gynaecological Surgeries 175 Surgeries for new-born babies 175 Toddlers 177 Encouraging women to attend Clinics 177 Traditional birthing attendants 180 iii. Medical and Auxiliary Staff 181 European doctors 181 Auxiliary doctors 182 Midwives 182 District nurses 183 The importance of primary education 184 Local or European dress 185 PART 4 - THE SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT AND PROGRESS 187 7 © FRANCOPHONE AFRICA: BEYOND THE ARCHIVE 2017 i. Villages 187 Villages in remote areas 187 Progressive villages 188 Women’s quarters 190 Women’s lifestyles 190 Chiefs’ wives 191 Exodus from the countryside 191 ii. Large towns and cities 192 Markets 192 Shops 194 Poor neighbourhoods 194 ‘Foreigners’ 196 The African middle-classes 196 Women living in the cities 198 iii. Prostitution 199 Runaways 200 African riflemen’s wives 201 Pimps 201 The difficulties of eradicating prostitution 202 An attempt at monitoring prostitution 203 The causes of prostitution 203 iv. Educated Africans 204 Former pupils from rural and urban schools 204 Former pupils from upper primary and vocational schools 204 Former schoolgirls from rural and urban schools 206 Civil servants’ households 207 8 © FRANCOPHONE AFRICA: BEYOND THE ARCHIVE 2017 Educated Africans and marriage 210 Economic pressures on African civil servants 211 CONCLUSIONS 216 Old Boys’ and Old Girls’ Associations 220 9 © FRANCOPHONE AFRICA: BEYOND THE ARCHIVE 2017 PREFACE Having been given the responsibility of producing a study on the situation of women in French West Africa, I felt that I could best define the role that African women have been playing in society here by looking at their social environment, be this African or mixed-race, in its entirety. The present report has been produced with this objective in mind. It sets out the major problems, and situates them in their social and human context, while keeping the primary focus on those aspects of life that particularly affect women and children. Following the directives I was given, I have pointed out where we are finding our job here difficult, and where we are making mistakes. I have done this frankly but without any malice intended. Rather than criticising, I would like to bear witness to the immense efforts have been made and the remarkable successes that have been achieved. My goal is to help those I have seen struggling so valiantly at their almost superhuman tasks, and I have considered it my duty to draw attention to the obstacles they are encountering and to present to them, with all due modesty, what advice I can offer from my own varied experience. This report is the result of a year spent studying African customs, including some seven months of 10 © FRANCOPHONE AFRICA: BEYOND THE ARCHIVE 2017 travelling, along with all my previous experience of African village life.3 The Report relates to the colonies of the French Sudan, Niger, Dahomey, the Ivory Coast and French Guinea.4 3 Denise Savineau worked for four years in French Equatorial Africa before taking up an administrative post in the Education Department of the French West African colonial administration in Dakar in September 1936. The author had already published a book under her own name, Denise Moran, Tchad (Paris: Gallimard, 1934), in which she had criticised aspects of the colonial system in Chad. A copy of this edition of the book is held in the British Library, London. 4 Savineau also visited Upper Volta (Burkina Faso) in the winter of 1937-38 and Casamance in Southern Senegal in the spring of 1938 on her way back home to Dakar. The countries she lists here, now known as Mali, Niger, Benin, Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea, gained their independence from France in the period known in French as ‘les Indépendances’ between 1958 to 1960. 11 © FRANCOPHONE AFRICA: BEYOND THE ARCHIVE 2017 -1-5 PART 1 CUSTOM AND LAW =============== Europeans often talk about ‘real African tradition’ as if this were a building constructed in its entirety by some ancient sage in prehistoric times who fixed its customs for all time. There is no such thing as ‘real African tradition’. On the contrary it is a collection of ever-changing practices that reflect changing values. The isolated or sedentary human group explores its environment and explores itself, and by so doing it develops its sense of society. Invasion or exodus renews its environment and suddenly presents changes that cause it to take a great leap forward towards more knowledge. Each phase is as interesting as the next, and this includes the European phase in the case of colonised countries. French occupation has had a profound impact on Black Africa. There is not a village that has escaped our influence, given that all of them have to work to raise the wherewithal to pay their tax6. Once they have paid the tax some of them go back to their old activities and their wise or cruel customs, though probably this will not last much longer.