Family and Marriage Traditions

Marriage.

Among the indigenous majority, marriage is ideally polygynous and patrilocal, with the bride moving to her husband's compound to live with his extended family. Probably less than 30 percent of men actually have more than one wife at a time, and those marriages often fail because of conflicts between co-wives.

Marriage is a process rather than an event, with bridewealth payments made over many years and solidified by the birth of children. The increasing access of women to cash through the marketing of foodstuffs has resulted in some women freeing themselves from unwanted marriages by paying back the bridewealth.

Bridewealth establishes the right of a husband to claim any children born to his wife regardless of their biological father.

The great value placed on women as agricultural workers and childbearers ensures that no woman who wants a husband is without one for long.

Relative Status of Women and Men. Indigenous constructions of gender usually emphasize the breadwinner or productive role for women and the warrior role for men.

Indigenous political structures have a "dual-sex" organization, that is, parallel systems of offices for men and women. Among the northwestern peoples, this takes the form of the dual organization of the Poro and Sande secret societies. In the south and east, female councils of elders use a series of checks and balances on official male power

Among the civilized native and Americo-Liberian communities, statutory marriages are limited by the Christian insistence on monogamy. Most successful men, however, have one or more "country wives" who have been married through bridewealth in addition to the "ring wife" who shares their primary residence.

Children from secondary marriages often are raised by the father and his official wife and form junior lines within important families in Monrovia and other coastal cities.

Before 1980, the most prominent settler families practiced formal endogamy, resulting in a situation in which most important government officials were related by kinship and intermarriage.

Tribal Groups.

Among the indigenous people, groups in the northwest are organized into ranked lineages of "land owners," "commoners," and "slaves." Kinship is crucial in determining social status among these groups.

The ranking of lineages is mirrored in the Poro and Sande societies and dictates the "secrets" that may be learned by initiates.

Chieftaincy belongs to particular families, although succession does not follow a strict father-to-son transmission. Among the less stratified peoples of the southeast, kinship determines less in terms of individual life chances but remains crucial in regard to citizenship, identity, and access to land.

Socialization Child Rearing and Education.

Children are highly valued as potential workers and supporters of their parents in old age. Babies are constantly carried, tied to the back of the mothers or another care giver.

Children take on chores at an early age and are expected to learn through observation and imitation rather than through formal verbal instruction and the asking of questions. 

In the Poro and Sande "bush schools" for initiates, formal instruction in local history and genealogy is provided in addition to specialized training in herbalism and midwifery.

Formal Western educational institutions originated with mission schools whose primary aim was conversion to Christianity; in areas of Muslim conversion, Koranic schools offer literacy training in Arabic.

Higher Education.

Access to higher education at the University of Liberia was limited, especially for those of "tribal" background, until large numbers of the elite began taking advantage of foreign scholarships to send their children to Europe and the United States in the 1960s. Many of the current leaders received their education in the United States.