Notions of loss of honour and shame for a family are mostly provoked by incidents where it becomes known that a girl engaged in sexual relations before marriage or, for a married woman, sexual relations out of wedlock. For unmarried girls this may become known either through pregnancy before marriage or because a girl is found not to be a virgin upon the wedding night. Both cases are devastating for the girl’s family as this brings shame upon them and the girl’s reputation is ruined. In most cases pregnancy before marriage means that a girl cannot marry her parents’ chosen groom, a respectable young man with whom a union would secure social standing and
tie the families closer together. At such a ‘respectable’ wedding, the praise singers (griots) would have sung in her honour and praised her lineage and reputation. The praise singer would have reminded the wedding guests of the groom’s and the bride’s distinguished ancestors and their unforgettable deeds. This would have made both the bride’s and the groom’s families proud and happy.
If a girl falls pregnant before marriage the degree of dishonour very much depends on who the father of the child is. It is less grave if the father is of the same status group. In that case marriage can be arranged once the child is born. For a noble girl it is extremely shameful if the father is of a lower status group. The worst case scenario is if he belongs to the status group of slaves (Galluŋkooɓe/Maccuɓe). Not only is marriage between a noble woman (Dimo) and a man of skill (Ñeeño) unthinkable but the child would be considered of inferior ‘pedigree’ growing up in a noble household. Parents whose daughters are impregnated by a Galluŋke find this outrageous.
To make the indignation this might cause explicit, I was given an example in a Subalɓe village where the population consists to 80% of Subalɓe and 20% Galluŋkooɓe. There are no other noble inhabitants. In this village lived a young and extremely attractive Galluŋke man who was sporty, charming and very popular with the girls. One of the unmarried girls fell pregnant with his child which infuriated the elders. They summoned a meeting to come to an agreement on how Galluŋkooɓe men who impregnate Subalɓe girls should pay for their crime. It was decided that a fine of CFA100 000 should be paid to the girl’s family in compensation. Many young people in the village ridiculed this regulation because if a slave girl fell pregnant by a nobleman, which frequently happened, it was unthinkable that a compensation payment would even be offered.
I often heard people say that only 15 years ago it was rare to see girls raising illegitimate children in their parents’ village. A girl who fell pregnant before marriage had to leave without further ado and never come back. They would flee to a distant relative or acquaintance far away, where no other villagers had acquaintances who could report back on the girl’s life. She was forced to bring her child up there and perhaps marry a local man in this area. Families found this very sad as it meant losing
a daughter or sister who was not able to marry her parent’s chosen groom.
Nowadays a girl does not have to break off all contacts with the family and vanish forever but having a child before marriage still has consequences. When I returned to Mboumba in January 2008 I found that one of the girls in the family with whom I had spent much of my time was not there. I asked where she was because I missed her – she used to cheer everyone up and make me laugh while she was doing the housework. I was told that she had moved somewhere else. One day we were sitting in front of a boutique and she walked past with a baby tied on her back. Rather than greeting us loudly and warm-heartedly as she would have done a year before, she seemed embarrassed, looked at the ground while shaking our hands and walked on without exchanging much news. I said to my friends that I did not know she had had a baby and that I was happy for her. They replied that she was not married, which was why she had left her father’s compound and lived with a relative. Although girls are not shunned for pregnancy before marriage as they used to be, they still bring shame upon themselves and often have to leave their homes.
Rather than having to go through this humiliation some seek other solutions. One of them is a clandestine abortion with a herb cocktail prepared by knowledgeable women. However, no one speaks of this publicly; these women are consulted secretly at night-time because if it is discovered the consequences are socially even more devastating than pregnancy before marriage. Abortion is condemned by religion and by society. There are also known cases of infanticide. I was told of a case that happened in the 1980s, when a dead newborn baby was found in the bush outside a village. The villagers were outraged and tried to find out whose child it was and who left it there. The mother was an unmarried girl who claimed that the baby was already dead when she left it. The case was referred to the police.
The consequences of a girl not being a virgin upon marriage are not so devastating. Nevertheless, if it becomes known to everyone in the village through gossip it does bring shame upon the girl and her family. To prevent this from happening, techniques have been developed by girls, their accomplices and sometimes prospective husbands to pretend that the girl is a virgin. Most families proudly display the blood-stained sheet of the bride the morning after the wedding night and the bride receives visitors
in her bedroom for the rest of the day, displaying CFA10 000 banknotes the groom has attached to the bride’s hair to show that he is pleased that he found her a virgin. If the groom knows that his bride is not a virgin but he wants to preserve the family honour, the couple may arrange for the sheets to be stained with the blood of a secretly slaughtered chicken. I have also heard of girls, eager that their grooms believe them to be virgins, placing a bag with animal blood or red liquid inside their vagina that bursts upon penetration.
Even if some grooms do not object to their brides not being virgins, most grooms feel deceived if they only discover this on the wedding night. I have heard on various occasions that most marriages where this happens break up within a year, regardless of what the family think, because of loss of trust by the groom. It is said that he cannot be certain of her not lying to him again and of her not taking more lovers when he is away. A woman’s self-restraint and control of sexual desire when her husband is away is crucial to her reputation and his.
Men feel loss of honour when they fail to be taken seriously by the local community due to their own misbehaviour or the misbehaviour of close kin. As I have explained, the more a person helps others and fulfils his or her obligations, the more recognition he or she receives from the community and the more likely he/she is to be considered a respectable, influential person. If a man’s behaviour is shameful he loses recognition and is less likely to be consulted when decisions are made by elders or important family members. For some men, being denied a say in communal decisions because of their past misbehaviour or display of weakness is so shameful that it is preferable to move elsewhere.
One way of gaining a bad reputation is by displaying a lack of bravery, for example by avoiding dangerous and problematic situations. If, for example, a young man avoids walking to places by himself in the dark, or refuses to undertake dangerous or tricky jobs, he is regarded as a weakling, which means that he is not sought after by women and becomes a figure of ridicule.
It is also said that a man’s sexual behaviour can reflect badly on his reputation and can result in him being considered a threat. For instance, I was told about a man called
Ablaye who was known to have extra-marital relations frequently. On one occasion the solar panels of the water-pump outside his village were stolen and the villagers decided to patrol the village at night-time in order to catch the thieves. Everyone was instructed to stay in their homes unless urgent business required them to leave. Respectable men of the community could still move around if they explained where they were going and for what purpose. However, when patrolling villagers caught Ablaye walking through the village at night-time they did not hesitate to beat him up because he had broken the curfew. Even though Ablaye was not a thief, the village- security did not refrain from punishing him for breaking the agreement because his moral personhood was already compromised. Lack of honour can therefore lead to lack of respect and denial of rights.
Some people, especially close kin, consider it a grave matter if a man has a child before marriage or out of wedlock. However, I knew a few men who had children before marriage and this did not seem to reflect badly on their reputation – they were still considered honourable men. It seemed to be far more shameful if a man’s wife conceived a child outside wedlock. It was unthinkable for the real father to recognise the child as his own – the mother’s husband had to recognise the child as his own, even if he was not physically present during the period when the child was conceived and born. Such cases bring dishonour and sadness to the husband, the wife and the child, who is not told who its real father is. I was told of a case where a young man resembled his biological father a great deal and was often mistaken for his son, instead of his mother’s husband’s. This was extremely embarrassing for him as well as his parents.
These examples may serve as justifications for the importance of control of desire and excision. The social consequences of a man having a child out of wedlock do not affect his professional life and long-term respectability to the same extent as women conceiving illegitimate children. Illegitimate children are somewhat less respected and have less status than those born in wedlock. While I was in Bito, two women named their daughters after me in my honour. One of the children was from a respectable Tooroodo family, the other was illegitimate. I was encouraged to go and see the legitimate little Sarah more than the illegitimate one. People would avoid mentioning the latter’s existence. It seemed that her having been named after me did not count
towards my honour to the same degree as the legitimate Sarah.
We can see that a man’s honour can be more easily compromised through women’s sexual misconduct than the other way round. A woman’s upright behaviour is what keeps Futanke society in order. The woman is the pillar of society, some marabouts told me. As long as her behaviour is exemplary, the honour of the family remains intact. If she does not behave well, however, the consequences of her behaviour affect her husband’s as well as her children’s and parents’ reputations.