Conclusion
In Bamunka,
socio-political institutions that once had a largely symbolic
value are being transformed to assume a more direct material
significance and occasion a competitive display of wealth. A
case in point is the growing interest in the acquisition of
high status titles and the commutation from payments in kind to
payments in cash. Thus rather than offering items for immediate
consumption, they are adapting a customary system of
redistribution to the requirements of commodity exchange.
Irrespective of their social standing and the forces for change
that continue to affect Bamunka, men in such different
positions as husband, brother, member of traditional and modern
'big men' groups are able to and do control women's labour for
their own changing social and material benefit. This is
notwithstanding the fact that capitalist market principles have
become a more or less permanent feature of the economy.
Meanwhile a husband's control over his wives' sexuality and
fertility serve in the reproduction of control over future
bearers of human energy. In this way, women's subordination to
men is expressed in gender divisions and patterns which are
socially and historically determined and legitimized. This
situation also enhances the latter's prestige and political
power to the detriment of the former.
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