Pregnancy

Within the context of African religion, pregnancy is always a special, much hoped for, and therefore cherished event. Although marriage is certainly one of the critical moments in the human life cycle, along with birth, puberty, and death, the main, if not only, purpose of marriage is procreation. In fact, in some African societies, marriage is not considered final and complete until the couple's first pregnancy has occurred. This is the case because so much emphasis is placed on the affirmation and perpetuation of life as the highest value and priority in African culture.

Pregnancy is of critical significance for women in Africa. Indeed, it marks the passage from the status simply of “woman” to that of mother. One's demonstrated ability to bear a child confirms one's creative power as a female and, thus, one's ability to participate in the cosmic drama of life transmission and regeneration. From this, African women draw a sense of self-worth that can hardly be underestimated; they also gain a new identity and great social prestige. Conversely, a woman's failure to achieve pregnancy will be a source of great sorrow and sometimes a cause for divorce. Clay pots are commonly used, in a metaphorical sense, to represent the woman's womb waiting to be filled with life. It must be remembered that clay is widely associated with the stuff of life, with human beings often reported, in creation stories, as having been molded out of clay.

Men's social identity is also, of course, greatly and positively affected by pregnancy. Pregnancy enables a man to establish his virility. Among the Manyika people, from the Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe, for example, a man's failure to have children will preclude him from becoming an ancestor. In many other African societies, childless men will not be entitled to full burial rites, if any at all. Certainly, because one of the primary duties of children is to remember their parents when the latter die, childless men (and women) cannot expect to continue being members of their community much longer after dying because there will be nobody to speak their name.

Finally, pregnancy is also quite important for the family and the community as a whole because both are expected to be strengthened by the arrival of a new member. Pregnancy, therefore, is never the concern of just the couple, but also of all those who surround them.

Children, and therefore pregnancy as well, are believed to be gifts from the ancestors. In fact, in many African societies, a child to be born is an ancestor returning. As a result, many will seek, with the help of a diviner, to identify that ancestor. When the child is born, he or she may bear the name of the reincarnated ancestor or a name linking the child to that ancestor. In the case of infertility, the ancestors are also, quite predictably, automatically suspected of interfering with a couple's ability to get pregnant. Appropriate rituals will be performed to appease the ancestors' anger and get them to change their mind and allow a child to come.

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