Family

The Family in Africa

In traditional West African societies, the cultural origin of most black families in the United States, families were defined by their extended, multigenerational network character and blood relations patrilineally (i.e., along a male line), as seen among the Yoruba of Nigeria; matrilineally (i.e., along a female line), as seen among the Ashanti of Ghana; or in some instances twineally (i.e., along dual lines of inheritance), as seen among the Ibo of Nigeria. Family size and kin networks were extended by marriage between members of different lineages, since marriage to a blood relative was prohibited. Within a lineage group, children within the same age cohort were considered siblings to each other. While conjugal relationships between husbands and wives were important for defining smaller family groupings or households into which children were born, uncles or aunts often were referred to as “father” or “mother” and had the social and cultural responsibility for the children of their brothers and sisters that parents have for their children in Westernized nuclear families. This system, based on blood relationship through lineages and well-structured lines of responsibility and inheritance, provided both fluidity and security for members of the extended African family. In addition to these structural parameters, African families were defined spiritually by the recognition of all members of a lineage across generations, including the unborn and the dead or ancestors. This meant that much day-to-day living included rituals of inclusion and acknowledgment of ancestors as active family members. This also meant that both elders and small children were valued, cared for, and provided an important place in the family and wider social structure of the African community.

The Family in America

In the diaspora, particularly in the United States, the experiences of enslavement and Africans' social, cultural, and spiritual resistance to enslavement have been critical elements in determining both the structure and function of black families. While the cruelties and dehumanizing methods of chattel servitude made it impossible for Africans enslaved in North America to maintain the complex family systems of the traditional African societies, Africans were able to hold on to the value for blood relations, the valuing of the extended kin network, reverence and respect for [Page 242]elders, and the centrality of children to the family structure. The continued focus on the primacy of consanguineous or blood relations in defining family engendered a strong sense of responsibility and obligation between blood kin across the extended network.

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