Family

The Family's Role

The African family establishes a child's presence in the world and provides the child with identity, spiritual ancestry, and personhood. One does not have personhood without the collective family in the African sense. No one is alone, and no one is an individual island. Thus, the family acculturates the child to the position that he or she occupies in the human realm. Children in families are taught their lineages, responsibilities, values and customs, and obligations to the family. Many things are taboo, that is, they are considered deeply dysfunctional to the family if they are done by the children and this serves, therefore, as a prohibition for antifamily behavior.

According to most African scholars, one of the principal roles of the family is procreation. Because it is believed by many Africans that life continues after death and that reincarnation occurs in human form, it is important to maintain the procreative function of the family as a way of maintaining the presence of the ancestors in the land of the living. Once ritual has played its course in the remembrance of the ancestors and there are no more children or grandchildren to ritualize the ancestors, they can only live by returning to Earth in a human form. Thus, the continuity is ensured because the ancestors return not in an animal form, but in the form of a child who is born to the same lineage. Often the African elder's only worry appears to be, “Who shall ritualize me when I am deceased if I have no children.” Therefore, men and women believe that having many children is one of the best ways to ensure continuity so that the circle of humanity, especially in the family, is not broken.

The African family is also the center of spirituality and economic production. By increasing the productive capacity of the family, often with the expansion of the members of the family through plural marriage or through adoption into the family, economic stability is maintained. Because marriage is how members are traditionally added to families, the significance placed on marriage in Africa relates to the spiritual continuity of the group. It is rare to find matrifocal families in Africa where a mother and her children exist outside of a relationship with a man.

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