Chisungu x Bemba
On social structure
Definition
Introduced into British anthropology by A.R. Radcliffe-Brown, the concept of social structure describes the complex network of social relations that connect human beings.
Such complex networks will in turn create certain social rules or norms that a society’s members are expected to adhere to — albeit with certain variations according to the society’s hierarchical positions.
Consequently, social structures will define and outline the different roles that actors will undertake
In relation to
Bemba
Richard explained that the social structure of the Bemba is one that is centred around matrilineality and it is maintained and expressed by the Chisungu ceremony
Urapmin
Robbins argued that the Urapmin’s social structure is a product of people acting in both lawful and wilful way.
Robbins aims to understand the impact of Christinaity on the Urapmin society
Richard explains how the Chisungu ceremony fits into the whole of the Bemba society
Paradox
Bemba
Urapmin
after their conversion to Christianity, they are left to live with two ‘cultures’
their traditional ideas about social structure are in conflict with the newly adopted Christian ideas.
matrilineal aspect of the society
financial dependency lies on the wife’s family, but men remain dominant — to an extent.
Different conceptions from authors
RB and Richards
understand ‘social structure’ as an objective, organism-like reality independent of Bemba people’s concepts or feelings
Robbins
sees Urapmin ‘social structure’, such as marriages or group membership, as made in the first place through value structures like their desire for relationships and their dialectical commitment to an interplay of willfulness and lawfulness
Leadership style
Robbins Urapmin
Richard's Bemba
kinship agricultural social structure that is shaped around the Big Men who convince people to join them to build villages and to innovate in order to maintain their attraction and authority.
Cognatic
the Urapmin do not have a set group but can voluntarily choose who they form a kinship relation with
thus belonging to more than one group at the same level of the social structure
"in planning social action people do not orient to an image of an ideal social structure or to a set of conscious rules concerning how people in specific ascribed statuses should interact."
the Urapmin don’t tend to speculate on what is in the hearts of other people
ethnographic example in which Big Men — or aspiring ones —jump at the chance to ask a girl’s will, a process which is usually considered as hard work.
the Big Men are essential to Urapmin society because they are the ones that arrange people into villages and assign them different tasks
BM bind as many people as possible to create a large social unit, they “stabilize Urapmin social arrangement.
to even further highlight their importance and authority, the Big Men have not only adopted Christianism themselves
since they were originally the ones who allowed the young men to go to Tifalmin — but have also gone so far as to convert neighbouring regions.
Robbins concluded the Big Men impose their will to give shape to the social life
How they differ
Robbins' account is describing a case where it's specific people and their actions that give shape to social life
contrasts with what Radcliffe-Brown expects and perhaps Richards also. Those figures expected that it would be a kinship rule like matrilineal group membership that would give shape to social life.
the most characteristic features of the Bemba social structure are its hierarchical and authoritarian type of government
the Bembans are preoccupied mostly by rank determined by age
next defining feature of the Bemba’s social structure is its matrilineal descent
thus placing the financial dependency on the wife’s family — the conflicts arising from this will be detailed later on
a lot of key statuses in their society are linked to kinship and some statuses do not necessarily match with the roles that we expect them to uphold
the people with legitimate authority over children in the Bemba society is the mother’s brothers and not the fathers
persuasion and reputation are also as important in the Bemba society as it is for the Urapmin
Richard also noted that a successful Nacimbusa is one that has “unusual intellectual ability as well as leadership and the power to attract women from surrounding villages.”
it is still important to note that reputation still comes second to age and descent — as illustrated by the song “the armpit is never higher than the shoulder.”
the Chisungu is an essential part to the social structure of the Bemba society because gives the initiated girl entry to the company of the leading women in the neighbourhood and makes it possible for them to rise gradually in the hierarchy of potential nacimbusa.
Ceremonies and their social significance
the Chisungu
ritual that happens after a girl’s puberty to protect her and her family from her bodily changes.
The ceremony lead by the Nacimbusa — the father’s sister, which is in line with the matrilineal aspect of the society — to embody marital success.
most important aspect of the ceremony
social significance because it gives the initiated girl the ‘secret knowledges’ that will define her as a woman and confirms her right as marriageable.
By establishing new social relations and boundaries, the ceremony thus contributes to the building, maintaining, and strengthening of the Bemba social structure as a whole.
Conflicts
contradiction between the “masterful male and the submissive son in law and the submissive kneeling wife.”
the patriarchal aspect of the Bemba society wherein a girl is expected to please her husband sexually, greet him by kneeling and she cannot refuse any duties
Nevertheless, the importance of female agency in Bemba society
is still highlighted by the fact that it is the groom that is allowed access to the bride to make her fertile.
The Bemba society being of matrilineal descent means that the husband is a procreator first and foremost
“if a Bemba husband fails to give his wife a child, his marriage comes to an end. If he makes her pregnant, but she dies in childbirth, he will be held responsible by the heads of her matrilineage and by her father and mother.”
when compared with other societies and even Western ones — where the blame is put on the wife if she ‘fails’ to produce a male heir — the Bemba are still firmly a matrilineal society.
This, in turn, gives men an exaggerated importance in the society
as it was illustrated during the Chisungu when the ceremony depicts the man as a “roaring-lion” or a “lion-killer” to focus on his virility.
Richard also noted that there is also a second source of conflict between the father and the mother's brother
“for the control of the former's children and this is a tension inherent in the matrilineal system.”
as it was mentioned previously, this is because “the Bemba father is head of his own extended family and is the chief authority in his children's lives during their early years.
The social structure in the Bemba society, then, is a potential source of conflict in a matrilineal society that still retains traces of patriarchy.
the Bemba
after the arrival of Christianity also creates dilemmas within the society.
Robbins defined the Upramin social structure as one that is a “product of people acting in both lawful and wilful ways.
An ideal social structure or to a set of conscious rules concerning how people in specific ascribed statuses should interact.
Prior to Christianity
Robbins argued that wilfulness was at the centre of Upramin social relationships
as it was demonstrated by practices like the “calling of the name” during which a girl would dramatically fall and say the name of a river that runs through a boy’s village to make the choice of who she wants to marry
This example of creative wilfulness — along with gift giving for instance — truly illustrates that the fact that social groups — and by extension the social structure of the Urapmin — is dependent on wilfulness.
Arrival Christianity
conflict with Christian beliefs that “condemns the will categorically.”
the traditional social structure of the Urapmin makes it so that they are now equally pre-occupied with morality.
by living in two cultures, the Urapmin are constantly feeling sinful and troubled and often find themselves confessing mundane events.
the social structure of the Urapmin makes it so that it is created by their wilfulness but are maintained by their lawfulness — this duality creates a conflict that does tear the society but also helps in preserving it.
Conclusions
some ways that Robbins and Richards may understand ‘social structure’ to be very different.
even within regular traditional social structure, there are tensions and contradictions between willfulness and lawfulness,
the contradictions are within social structure
contradiction between social structure and religion
the values of social structure and liking relationships require people to act willfully, but religious values define willfulness as sin.
The social structure, as it was studied through Becoming Sinners and Chisungu, then, is something that is constantly evolving thanks to the elements that are created by the social structure itself.