Ancestor Stones Part 2

I want to write about matriarchal vs. patriarchal societies with Ancestor Stones. By the most basic of terms, I cannot find which would perfectly fit the novel. Sure, women we in charge of lots of things, the head wife was even in charge of the money and important things. That alone does not allow me to qualify this society as matriarchal. Nor can I qualify them as a matriarchal group because Madame Bah is a woman and owns her own shop.

We see that women were doing a lot of the house work and the work to maintain the compound. When we are introduced to Asana's mother she is maintaining the outer walls of her house. The wives are in charge of the cooking, cleaning and taking care of the children. These are all tasks normally associated with what Europeans would consider a good housewife. Clearly, the man was in charge of how many wives were taken; Asana's mother made suggestions since she was older and respected, but Asana's husband brought in a new wife whenever he felt he should. And the man is in charge of the labor that makes the families income, a role that is often seen in patriarchal societies.

One might argue that the women fish and that is normally viewed as a man's job, along the lines of hunting. However, we do hear mention of men fishing and it was men who build the dam to trap the fish in, so it is more that the women are going to a large barrel and using nets to gather some fish. Besides that, the fish were for consuming and preparing fish would have been the woman's task.

Divorce was allowed but it did not look like the woman had much say in it, or more so, women did not seem to be able to take advantage of it. We learn early on in the novel that to divorce someone you have to pay back the bride price, boom, divorce. Fun thing about bride price, the way we see divorce done was how the Talmud, book containing Jewish laws, ethics, customs and history, sets up divorce as a financial being. to me this establishes women as almost items that can be bought and returned. It also seemed that divorce did not have a negative connotation to it. In Europe, it would mean that the woman was not "pure" or the man had a xala problem. In Ancestor Stones, it could be any small excuse.

I am not in favor of saying this book is empowering to women. Note Asana. One of her co-wives was basically sold by her father so he could retool his barns. I particularly can't say that is surprising or horrible because the same thing happened in Europe all the time. We saw King Leopold II marry of his daughters to expand his empire all the time. Asana somewhat had a choice of who she married, she pleaded with her dad to see the man that become her husband, but in the end I feel that the dad could have vetoed that decision.