The West Indian matrifocal family

The West Indian matrifocal family is another well-known form of family organization that casts doubt on the universality of the nuclear family. For many lower-class West Indians, both rural and urban, the role of the father in family life is negligible. The mother is the central figure, hence the term matrifocal (meaning focused on the mother). In the usual pattern a household comes into existence after a man and a woman set up house together. Their cohabitation is sometimes based on a legal marriage, but this is not necessarily the case. When children are born of the union, they are looked after by their mother, who in turn depends on her husband or lover for financial contributions toward running the household.

What makes the matrifocal family unusual is that the husband takes little or no part in child care and may indeed spend little time at home, often living elsewhere in the same community. Although in other parts of the world such behaviour would be frowned on or even thought of as deviant, in the West Indies it is socially acceptable. Eventually the older children, when they leave school, contribute toward the earnings of the family, and the importance of the father may be reduced even further. From this point on the mother is not only the focus of emotional ties but also the centre of economic and decision-making activities for the family. This is true whether or not her husband or lover is present as a member of the household. Older girls frequently take lovers and have children of their own while still living with the family. These children, in turn, often grow up looking to the focal figure of the family, their maternal grandmother, as the dominant figure in their lives.

The matrifocal family often dissolves with the death of the focal figure. Sometimes a mature daughter, with the help of her father, is able to keep the family together for a time, but this is not usually the case. The brothers and sisters normally move away to set up their own households, and they repeat the cycle with matrifocal families of their own.

This form of family organization, now common in the West Indies, bears no necessary relationship to the family's economic needs, but its origins may ultimately be economic. It has been argued, for example, that the female-headed household is descended from the separation of men from their families during the period of plantation slavery. Another view places the origin of the custom even earlier, in the West African compound family and the practice of polygamy (see above Forms of family organization: The compound family).

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16