Condiciones de ingreso de las niñas y adolescentes

This study adopts the understanding of African lineage as spelt out by Kirwen (2011) arguing that African lineage is “a living, viable community organized in terms of family relationships” (p. 66). The present study, while intending to find out the meaning of lineage among the Maasai, asked the respondents about the link of marriage to the theme of lineage and Maasai family (olmarei) structure. The

respondents were also asked to state the role of the family or community members in selecting a bride or bridegroom. In addition, the question was also intended to help to find out the role of the wider family or community in marriage. Thus, this section presents the results of the questions which sought to investigate Maasai community perceptions of marriage and the connection between marriage and the idea of lineage among the Maasai.

Family structures worldwide, consist of various components: how the family is organized, how it is run, who are the members and their individual or collective functions and the hierarchy of family members. Those cited by respondents in this study as members of the family were mother, father, brothers, sisters and elders.

The findings of this study show that the basic unit of Maasai community is the family. It includes the nuclear family and the wider family or what is commonly called the extended family. The nuclear family includes father, mother and children. In this unit the father plays the role of an authority following the patrilineal and patrilocal nature of Maasai family. Some of the key roles assigned to the male members of the lineage are support, encouragement and education of the members of the lineage. The husband owns, is the head, leads and manages the family and the household together with its property and programmes. It is his responsibility to manage both the wife and the children. When the husband is away for one reason or another, the eldest son takes his place.

However, according to respondents in a focus group discussion, in some instances the father can delegate the care of a son or a daughter to his eldest married son. This practice was observed in a Maasai wedding where a daughter was released from her elder brother’s house for marriage with the father in attendance and the elder brother acting as the father of the girl. This elder brother had been delegated to care for the girl since childhood.

This practice can be interpreted as confirmation that among the Maasai people the household family or nuclear family also includes other relatives of the father and mother such as younger unmarried or widowed sisters, aged parents, and children. This dimension of marriage that emphasises the relations of marriage to lineage is often neglected as individualism creeps into society. But it goes a long way to confirm the nature of the extended or wider understanding of family among the Maasai.

According to a Maasai elder, the family or lineage is the context within which education of children begins. The training of young children is called naisuni enkeraiyo or olkuok loi Maasai. It involves training the young to acquire skills that will accompany them throughout life, including in marriage.

According to a Maasai pastor interviewed in Ngong, “when a son is ready to get married he asks for his father's permission. He has to make a solemn declaration indicating that he is a man capable of sustaining his own family". This is necessary because a failed marriage reflects badly on the lineage. And a father bears a heavy responsibility for such

a failed marriage because it is proof that he did not educate his son well enough to run a family.

4.7.0 Age-Set (olporo) as Lineage

The type of lineage described in Section 4.7 is based on blood relations between individuals and is called kinship. It takes into account relationships in both a narrow and a broad sense. We have seen that among the Maasai, parents and their children are a special group in this kind of lineage concept.

However, among the Maasai, there is another social grouping or organization called age-set that could be likened to the operations of a lineage, though it is made up of people who are not necessarily blood relations and only operates among male members of the Maasai community. It has been noted earlier that among the Maasai, a wife automatically becomes a member of the lineage of her husband and likewise a member of his age-set. The age-set has the responsibility of taking care of her in case the husband dies. She is not supposed to remarry but remains under the care of her husband’s family.

The age-set is made up of those who are of approximately the same biological age and who were circumcised together. They are seen as a family unit. Elders appointed one of them, a most promising one, to act as a spiritual and ritual leader of the group. He is the one who takes up the role similar to that of a father in a Maasai family. Just as in a family set-up, age-set members have a set of norms that guide their behaviour. For instance, a girl must not marry a man of her father's age group since it suggests

incest, even though they are not genetically related. Such a man is regarded as her father. Similarly, a man must not marry a widow or a divorcee whose husband is of his father's age group, for she would be considered his mother, regardless of age.

Those who belong to the same age-set share identity through rituals they undergo in the Maasai community. They keep close ties most of their life and regard one another as brothers. This relationship is bestowed on the individual by initiation. It is a relationship which, as Magesa (1997, 101) argues, “underlines the realization that within the social organization an individual is required to show special loyalty to certain personal or group-relations as a way of strengthening the whole society” (p. 101; cf. Spencer 2003, 15-35).

4.7.1 The role of Lineage in Marriage

The respondents outlined three important roles of Maasai lineage in marriage. The three roles were, the selection of the partner through investigation of family background, advising the partners on matters of marriage and facilitating the engagement process. Leading among the roles in terms of the number of responses is investigation of the character of a partner and his or her family background, 91/163 responses. This is because the success of a marriage depends on the character of those getting into marriage as well as the support of the respective families they come from. On the other hand, 48/163 (29%), of the respondents stated that the community plays the role of advising the partners while 24/163, (14%), indicated that they facilitate the engagement process.