"Now the Woman Cooks and the Man Just Eats": the Changing Cultural Demography of Marriage in Cameroon

Jennifer Johnson-Hanks, University of California, Berkeley

The social institution of the family has undergone dramatic change in much of Africa over the past century. In contrast to theories of convergence, these transformations have not been of a single kind or in a single direction (c.f. Berry 2000; Bongaarts 2001). This paper examines post-independence family change among the Beti, an ethnic group residing primarily in southern Cameroon. I focus on the cultural demography of marriage: its timing, social coordination, and associated exchanges. Using a combination of sources (ethnographic, archival, the 1978 WFS and 1998 DHS), the paper shows that non-marital births has increased dramatically since the 1960s, with both bridal pregnancy and marital conceptions declining, and that first marriages have been postponed. The paper further examines the social and economic bases of these changes-particularly the decline of esep fields-and concludes with a discussion of why some elite Beti women now seek husbands on the Internet.